Branching Inward
by LifeInTheSnow
Summary: He's a brilliant, sensual, tactile artist with a huge personality and love for life...at least, he used to be. She's a shrewd historian, content to observe from a  distance...until now. At Newcoven College in Clearwater, OH, no secret is safe. All Human.
1. Prologue

**Playlist: **

**Northern Sky, Nick Drake**

_It's been a long time that I'm waiting, been a long time that I've blown  
Been a long time that I've wandered through the people I have known  
Oh, if you would and you could, straighten my new mind's eye.  
Would you love me for my money? Would you love me for my head?  
Would you love me through the winter? Would you love me 'til I'm dead?  
Oh, if you would and you could, come blow your horn on high._

**Prologue**

My decision was becoming more and more firm. I could feel it creeping inward from the borders of my mind, solidifying from a formless, vague impression into a more tangible reality. As I had hoped, being in this place helped. Over the past few years, I had come to realize I was the type of person who put a lot of stock in intuition, but I was also careful to back up my instincts with realities gathered from direct experiences.

With a quick "thank you" and a handshake, I asked my cheerful and chatty student guide to leave me alone for a few moments in the half-furnished room that would theoretically become my office here at Newcoven College.

The room, a turreted alcove on the top floor of the 18th-century stone building, was dominated by beautifully maintained dark mahogany woodwork. It was well insulated from the weather outside. I noted that up-to-date technology and security features had been tastefully incorporated. A large, heavy desk—probably original to the space, lined one wall, beneath two rows of deep shelves.

A single wide bay window overlooked a vast clearing, bordered around the edges with tall, old trees and crisscrossed by a few meticulously groomed walkways. Beyond the trees to the north were student dorms. To the west, more academic buildings. The clearing itself was filled with a thick layer of fresh, puffy white snow and not many people. Final interviews and campus visits for prospective faculty were being held during winter break, when the student body—and most everybody else, for that matter—were away.

I moved closer to the window, settling into the solid built-in window bench and peering down to watch the few figures moving through the campus below. For the hundredth time, I considered the implications of moving from sunny Phoenix to this northern climate, and a rural town at that. The prospect of four or five months of snowy winter was the silly last obstacle keeping me from accepting what was really a wonderful job opportunity. Everything else lined up like ducks in a row. It was a respectable college, and the position had research funds attached, which was almost unheard of for a new professor. I was lucky.

A smattering of students-some of the scant few who stayed in town for break-rushed from one corner of the quad to the other with a posture of no-nonsense determination, huddled and shivering in their coats, eyes cast down to scan the ground for slippery ice patches. Would that be me this time next year, bracing against the cold and dreading any errand that took me outdoors? I mentally calculated the distances and routes from this building—Masen Hall—to the library, classroom buildings, the shops in the square, and, just beyond that, the neighborhood where I would most likely be living. The whole town was so small I'd be able to walk everywhere, or ride my bike. So what if I had to dodge some snow now and then? The winter break here was longer than at most colleges, to allow for special student projects, which meant I could spend those winter weeks back in Phoenix or somewhere sunny. I realized I was beginning to envision a life here, outlining my tactics for surviving or avoiding the horrors of the cold.

Below my window, a bicyclist rode along with her head down against the cold air, not seeing the low-hanging branches of an oak tree in her path. She veered at the last minute to avoid disaster, slipping just a bit in the slushy snow bank, righting herself, and carrying on. The campus below looked desolate, and I reminded myself that only during winter break would it be so cold and lifeless. What would I have done if that cyclist had wiped out? Was there even an emergency room nearby? I shuddered, pushing all thoughts of hospitals out of my mind.

Gradually, my attention was drawn to a lone figure, a man, moving slowly on long legs across the quad toward the edge of the clearing just below my window. He was dressed in rugged boots and outerwear, a dark woolen hat pulled over his ears and a grey scarf masking most of his face. Others rushed past him without so much as a nod, as if he wasn't even there, and he seemed equally indifferent to them. His pace was so unhurried as he strolled the path, his posture upright and his gait purposeful rather than hunched and frenzied like everyone else. A mountain lion among scampering squirrels. It intrigued me. What was he doing?

He surprised me by stepping off the path, leaving oval impressions in the ankle-deep powder as he stalked toward the snow-laden branches of the round oak. Without its leaves, frosted all over with a white fringe, the tree reminded me of a dandelion, spherical and spindly- but huge, probably hundreds of years old.

Effortlessly, this person hauled himself up onto a low branch and scrambled up a bit. The tree was stronger than I thought, barely moving under his weight. He was suddenly closer to me—if he climbed much further we would be at eye level.

Inexplicably, I felt like a voyeur, blushing a little as he removed a glove, shoving it into a pocket, and reached out his hand toward a nearby branch. Steamy vapor rose from his pink skin. His hands moved within the tree, clipping or pruning. He shoved something into the deep cargo pockets of his heavy work pants. I guessed that he might be a landscaper or building-and-grounds engineer. From what I could see of his face, he was handsome, with a strong jaw and pale, creamy skin, a little bit flushed from the cold.

The intensity of his concentration stirred something in me. He turned his gaze to the sidewalk below and, in a sort of offhanded way, began jostling the low-hanging branch with his foot, just enough so that the heaviest snow deposits and ice chunks tumbled to the ground below and the branch was made lighter. I saw that it no longer obstructed the path. A pair of bicyclists meandered by, deep in conversation as they pedaled, both of them clearing the branches easily.

Just what sort of place was this? The moment anything was out of place...a low tree branch threatening to clothesline wandering cyclists...someone came along to fix it. This place was sort of eerily perfect, but wild, too. I began to see the variable texture and weight of the snow—fluffy and drifting over there, heavy and drooping here, sharp and glistening, beautiful or dangerous or both.

Now my mystery man lingered in his perch, elbows braced against a leafless tree limb. I stayed totally still, transfixed by the character in the tree, not wanting the show to end and _really_ hoping it wouldn't end with him startled by yours truly and pitching into thin air. He just gazed at his surroundings with an inscrutable expression. He looked pained, cautious—conflicted somehow. Steam puffed out from his lips and the recess between his neck and his scarf.

As he turned his face a few degrees-away from the tree, toward the sun-I gasped to see a shock of brilliant color refracted in his eyes. I could see even from this distance that his eyes were green like soft moss. His one gloved hand rose to remove the woolly hat and shake ice chunks loose, revealing a mop of unruly bronze hair. His other hand, bare and wet with crystals of clean snow, raked across his forehead and through his hair, and he visibly relaxed. Small lines of worry disappeared from his face.

He palmed some fresh snow and scraped it along the back of his neck and up along his temples.

I gulped, blinking slowly.

If I thought he was handsome before, he was utterly transcendent at this moment. Peaceful and exposed, neither suffering through the cold nor immune to it, but absorbing it with an uncritical openness that shocked me. The sun danced in his eyes and he seemed to take a moment to bask in the cold, bright light.

Then, just as quickly, his expression clouded over once again. He squinted and looked down, hopping lightly to the ground and walking back in the direction he came from.

I felt a sense of calm coming over me. Whatever agenda the weather brought to bear, this small town full of sturdy stone buildings and resilient dandelion-puff trees was ready. The cold didn't need to be the cruddy and painful torment I had been imagining. This was winter as nature's yearly recuperation: restorative, quietly dynamic. I hadn't realized how much I craved that for myself.

I could see my breath beginning to cloud up the window pane. I was suddenly struck by a childish impulse: I stroked my fingertip along the glass, marking my initials within a swooping heart. B.M.S…Bella Marie Swan. Yeah. I'd be back here—for good—by fall.

~.~.~.~.~.~

**Author Note:** So...will anyone read this? My first attempt at FF! This is an Edward/Bella love story, with a lot of involvement from the rest of the family (canon pairings) and appearances by some other familiar characters, some drama, mysteries, weather, atmosphere, and contemporary art weirdness. My outline puts it at maybe 25 chapters?


	2. Chapter 1: Keys

Twilight is the property of Stephenie Meyer. So are these characters. Other artists and musicians are cited in the text. Everything else is my original work.

Minor edit to this chapter on 10/22/10.

**Playlist:**

**Rollin' and Tumblin' Part I - Muddy Waters**

**Temptation - New Order**_  
Oh, you've got green eyes Oh, you've got blue eyes Oh, you've got grey eyes,  
And I've never seen anyone quite like you before. No, I've never met anyone quite like you before_

**Chapter 1. Keys**

"I don't think I've ever been so dirty and sweaty in my life!"

I collapsed onto the porch swing, panting, stripping off my dusty canvas work gloves and tossing them in the same pile as my damp henley. I was down to a tank top and cargo shorts, both soaked through with sweat. I contemplated building a bonfire in the late August heat, just so I could burn my disgusting clothes.

My new friend just smiled and handed me a cold beer. Alice was a surprise to me. A very welcome surprise. Of all the ways I imagined this day going, I never would have predicted a next door neighbor who would not only insist on helping move me in, but who was freakishly strong and capable, especially considering her tiny stature.

"Don't look at me like that." She snorted, as if she knew what I was about to say. "I've had a lot of practice with move-ins...and move-outs. And if it's all the same to you, I'd rather not repeat the cycle at the end of the school year, so please tell me you have more than a one-year appointment, Bella."

I wasn't so sure she would feel the same after getting to know me better, but nevertheless I appreciated that she was trying to butter me up. I wished I could set her mind at ease, but the truth was I had only committed to a one-year appointment. Depending on how things went-from my point of view and that of the college-I might have the option to stay longer, even pursue tenure.

Our conversation flowed easily. It wasn't that I expected it to be difficult. I had always made friends relatively easily-or at least, friendly acquaintances. But Alice seemed to skip right over the getting-to-know-you process, talking to me about life and plans for the future like we were already old friends. It was refreshing. I was hardly eager to rehash the past few years of my life, that was for sure.

Alice lived in the enormous 19th-century Queen Anne house next door to my little rented house. It looked to be three stories, with a wraparound porch and turrets and all kinds of elaborate woodworking. Even in a town lousy with turrets and Victorian flourishes, Alice's home stood out as a beautiful example of period architecture. And it was amazingly well taken care of. She had alluded to others who lived with her, but I hadn't seen anyone coming in or out all day. I imagined a house like that had to have six bedrooms or more, so it was a relief to hear she wasn't knocking around in there all alone like a bat in the belfry.

For now, the two of us sat on my porch, drank beers, and ate mushroom pizza straight from the delivery box.

~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.

Earlier today, I had been standing in the driveway watching my taxi driver disappear down the street, presumably heading back to the airport where he'd picked me up. I was clutching a small, creased tan envelope in my palm. A full three months after receiving it in my Phoenix mailbox, along with a signed copy of my lease, I still hadn't broken the seal. I tore it open and tumbled the contents into my palm. A key. For whatever reason, I'd kept this little brass object from myself until the last possible minute.

I drew a deep breath as I bounded up the stairs to the front door. I slipped my key into the lock, turned it, and swung open the door to my new home. It was strange coming to this place alone, finding it empty, knowing it would only be me from here on out. I realized with a pang of self-pity that I had no need for the second copy of this key, left behind within its little manila sleeve.

My mood lightened as I took a look around. Mid-afternoon light streamed in from the west-facing windows. Dust floated up in a swirl of air, seeming to sparkle in the slanted columns of sunlight. I set down my small carry-on and walked through the rooms, evaluating what I found against what I'd remembered from my house-hunting trip in the Spring. I stood in the middle of a wide living room with two large picture windows facing the street, hardwood floors under my feet. More windows on the east and west facing walls gave me views of my narrow driveway, the neighboring homes. Steam radiators lined two walls. A fireplace occupied much of the south wall, framed by two wide doorways. Through the door to the left was a decent-sized eat-in kitchen, mud room, and side door, and to the right a closet, bathroom, and stairs to the second floor. Up there, another bathroom and two small bedrooms waited, one of which would serve as a home office and guest room. Eh, that was optimistic. Maybe just a home office.

But the best feature, the thing I was most eager to revisit, taking the stairs two at a time, was the full wall of antique multi-pane windows in what would be my bedroom. Turning a set of small cranks one by one, I opened the windows and looked out onto the woody ravine that bordered the back lot. I wouldn't need curtains. I liked that the windows gave the illusion of being in the trees, surrounded by them, with no buildings or roads visible at all. I hoped it would feel like living in a nest. The trees were still leafy and green, and I could hear the creek gurgling.

I had never lived anywhere with this kind of lush nature. Phoenix was beautiful and sunny, but dry and rocky, specked with palm trees. Chicago shared this midwestern climate zone, technically, but the few neighborhoods there with plentiful green parkland and forest preserves were never affordable to my family.

I started to grow morose, feeling alone and sorry for myself. Then my memory returned, for the millionth time this year, to the feeling of weird mystery and calm that had enveloped me during my campus visit in February. I reminded myself that I was determined to make a fresh start here in this place where handsome young men climbed trees in the snow. I fished in my pocket for the plain key ring I'd been carrying there, and looped my single brass key onto it.

Down on the street, a horn sounded. I went to greet the moving truck carrying all of my worldly possessions, and I had just about reached the edge of the curb when I saw a tiny raven-haired pixie barreling toward me in paint-stained overalls, clearly on a mission. And that is how I met Alice, my first friend in the tiny town of Clearwater, Ohio.

~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.

The next day, Thursday, I had some new faculty orientation business to take care of. I overslept-I chalked it up to exhaustion from moving-and bolted out the door 15 minutes before my first meeting was to begin. I finger-combed my hair and grabbed my satchel on the way out. I remembered with relief that a crumbly granola bar was probably still tossing around somewhere deep in the recesses of my bag.

Well, I discovered that leaving my house 15 minutes before a meeting still left me with ten minutes to spare, because the central campus administration building was such a short walk from my new home. Not only that, but Alice breezed past me and pressed a latte into my hands.

"Trust me, Bella, you don't want to endure this without caffeine." Honestly, I was beyond questioning Alice. This latte made my eyes roll back in my head, it smelled so good. Then I discovered a spread of fresh fruit and pastries waiting outside the lecture hall, which meant my pathetic granola bar was forgotten all over again. "We take food pretty seriously here in the midwest, Bella. Especially during the growing season." Alice waved and was gone in an instant, taking a plate of peach slices with her. I followed her example and loaded up on fruit. Darn, it was good. Those people who gushed about local, tree-ripened produce were onto something.

I sat through about 90 minutes of basic orientation before we took a short break. Sizing up my fellow attendees, I could see that I was one of about 12 new faculty members, counting adjuncts and visiting fellows. This was one small college. During our recess, I refilled my small plate with more peach slices and a handful of blackberries. When I entered the hall again, I was surprised to see a few dozen more people were joining the group. I glanced at the agenda in my binder and couldn't sort out why. All it said was "New policy training."

My original seat was now occupied, so I scanned the room for an empty one. Just as I was sliding into a vacant chair, two things happened. The first was that the lights dimmed and the screen at the front of the room lit up with the title of the forthcoming presentation in giant hot pink font:

SEXUAL CONDUCT:

WHAT'S APPROPRIATE?

The second-and more worrisome-thing was that I glanced to my left and found myself gazing into a pair of frosty green eyes. I knew those eyes. I knew that angular jaw. I knew that mop of light, rusty-blond hair...only...up close, it was peppered with flecks of gold and wheat. _So soft. _It was the man from the tree. Up close and personal.

He seemed to be glaring at me. And shooting ice-cold vibes my way. Here I was, raking my eyes over his face like he was a circus freak. _Come see the amazing Freakishly Beautiful Man_!_ Two pence!_ I may have seen him before-I may have dreamed of his haunting face before-but he had never seen _me_ before, and he would have no idea who I was or why I would be staring at him like he was a delicious peach. At least I wasn't licking my lips. _I wasn't, was I? _

I forced myself to look at my plate of actual peaches. "What's Appropriate?" indeed. Would it be appropriate to munch on a juicy peach during the sexual conduct policy presentation? My thoughts were all over the place. For one thing, mystery man's presence here told me he wasn't a building and grounds engineer after all, but a professor. I suppose he just went around climbing and pruning trees for the fun of it. Or maybe he was a professor of...forestry? Even I knew that wasn't a department here. I had just come from a 90-minute session on the various departments, so I felt pretty confident about that.

Dr. Berty, the Dean of faculty, began his remarks. "Every member of the faculty will be receiving a similar orientation to this new policy-not just new faculty. The board has approved the changes to the sexual harassment policy as recommended by the faculty senate last Spring. This is the step we have been working toward and it is as much a protection to faculty as it is to students. Please turn to Tab Five in your binders..."

He droned on about the policy, which was nothing radically different from what existed elsewhere. Avoid meeting students alone behind closed doors, or at least avoid drinking copious amounts of alcohol with them alone behind closed doors. When and whom to notify if consensual relationships began either with a student, peer, or higher-up. What to do if a stampede of leprechauns riding on unicorns interrupts your lecture. Okay, that last part was purely my imagination, because it was about as likely as me initiating a relationship of any kind.

I huffed. Of course, Stone Cold Fox next to me was studiously taking notes. No doubt he had to practically wear a bag on his head to stem the tide of come-ons from female students. Or male students. Anyone with a pulse. Then again, even with a bag on his head, he would still smell like...oh, God, he smelled like clean laundry, rosemary, Earl Grey tea and...wax? Who knew wax could be so appealing and manly? Wax made me think of birthday candles, and birthday candles made me think of frosting, and obviously frosting was made for licking off of...help. His fingers. I just noticed his fingers. His hands. _Michelangelo's David called, he wants his epitome of masculine grace back_.

I wondered if another appendage resembled that statue's, simultaneously hoping it did not, and chastising myself for even entertaining the fantasy of finding out. Obviously, he wanted nothing to do with anyone in this room, based on his "stay-away" body language.

I tried sneaking a glance at him every so often. His eyes stayed trained on his papers and the front of the room. His leg was bouncing impatiently. When about five minutes were left to the presentation, he stood suddenly but quietly, and edged past me and out of the room. I didn't even know his name.

I looked around to see if any of the other attendees noticed his exit. Those who were new like me followed him with their eyes as he sauntered out. But how strange that so many of the other eyes in the room turned away from him, glancing to the floor or the windows, anywhere but at him. It was as if they had been conditioned to avert their eyes-like he was Medusa with a head full of snakes.

~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.

My afternoon was free, and I decided to finish setting up my faculty office. Well, I planned to, anyhow. For now I was just munching on a deli sandwich in my window seat overlooking the dandelion oak tree. It still had a perfectly spherical dandelion shape, though thick with late-summer leaves it resembled a dandelion less than it had when I saw it in winter.

"Hi, neighbor." Alice's head peeked into my doorway. She and three other Dance faculty members had their offices at the end of the hall. The Theater Studies department also shared the floor with my department. Their rehearsal and performance spaces were in the building next door. "I'm rearranging. I hope you don't mind, but I moved this extra file cabinet into your office. I'm trying to go more 'paper-free' these days... so I don't need it, but it's too nice to just leave in the hall for those crazy theater people to scavenge."

I snickered at her teasing derision of the theater crowd. It was true, they were all a bit wild-looking and frizzy. She gestured toward an elegant, low cabinet with three locking drawers. I smiled at her consideration. It was a nice piece of furniture. She helped me move it next to the wingback chair near the doorway.

"Um, your office security code is still set to the default code, so pretty much anyone can just waltz right in. Let me show you how to reprogram it-it's easy," she continued. She breezily walked me through replacing the default code with a password I chose, and she waited while I made sure the comparatively old-fashioned cabinet key worked smoothly. With a wide smile and without further ado, she flitted out again, back to her organizing. I could hear her exclaiming to herself every so often. Eventually her heels clicked away down the stairs.

My own move-in ordeal was less elaborate, to say the least. The new laptop issued by the department sat on my desk. I plugged it in, booted it up, and adjusted all of my preferences. I set up a desk lamp. I opened the bay window to enjoy the early fall breeze, and found places to store my digital voice recorder, camera, and archiving materials. I pinned up an antique map of the region on the largest wall.

I wouldn't need a key for my office door, thanks to the key code system, and the main entrance to the building was linked to my faculty ID card. But the key to my file cabinet needed a place to go, so I added it to my ring. Two keys. It wasn't much of a life, but it was a start.

~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.

On Friday, I woke up at dawn. The house was totally silent. No cars on a highway in the distance, no dogs barking, no sirens wailing or air conditioners rumbling to life. I experimented with just lying there, appreciating the stillness, but after five minutes I was crawling out of my skin. And so: I made coffee, put away the clean dishes from the strainer (all three of them), took a shower, made my bed, read the New York Times and the Washington Post online. I even made an attempt to read the local weekly paper online but it hadn't been updated in ages.

The view from my nest of a bedroom was especially clear and brilliant today. It had rained during the night-poured, actually, along with some somewhat spectacular thundering. But the storm has washed the dust and summer grime from the air, leaving the sky brighter. The trees rustled against each other in the forest, their leaves making a thick, wet noise.

Students would begin trickling back to campus on Monday, and classes would start on Wednesday. I had no idea how I would fill my time until then. Even though I had just showered, I decided it was as good a time as any to go out for a run and explore the town a bit.

The place was all but deserted. I ran about three miles, until the little houses with big yards began to give way to cornfields, then headed back the way I came. Of course the only car out on the street splashed puddle water onto my legs. While I was wiping it off with my wristbands, secretly glad to see they finally served some purpose, since I barely worked up an actual sweat, I noticed a little russet kitten who hadn't escaped the splash.

"You too, little buddy?" He rubbed against my legs and I mopped him with my terry wristband a bit. Probably some kid's pet.

I realized I was in front of a little coffee shop called Muddywaters that I had noticed on my first pass, in between the used bookstore and the five-and-dime store. The signage included a carved wooden figurine of a Huck Finn type character on a raft of toast, using a spoon to navigate along a river of coffee. That was enough to sell me on the place, and besides, it was open, and I was suddenly ravenously hungry.

The idea of bringing my dirty, sweaty, cat-hair infested wristband into a restaurant grossed me out, so I hooked it onto Huck's big spoon handle for safekeeping. Once inside, I sat in a tan pleather booth. There were only a couple of other people in the place, hunched over their papers, or possibly nodding off. I made conversation with the spry, salt-and-pepper-haired proprietor, asking her whether they sometimes had live blues performances, like the name implied, or whether it was a play on the name of the town of Clearwater. She shook her head.

"Neither." she said. "And both." She explained that her own last name was Clearwater, like the town-or vice versa, since the town was named after her ancestors.

She then jokingly claimed that Muddy Waters might have chosen his nickname after passing through this town and feeling inspired to distinguish himself as its opposite.

I laughed and said I thought his rumbling, low-down sound was perfectly matched to this place, considering the thunderstorm last night. She started to croon out a few bars of his _Rollin' and Tumblin'_ in a soft voice. Well, I just so happened to know how to play the rhythm part for that song on a pair of spoons and I'm not one to thumb my nose at kismet so I played and sang right along with her.

_Well I'm rollin' and I'm tumblin'  
Cried the whole night long  
Well I'm rollin' and I'm tumblin'  
Cried the whole night long  
Well I woke up this mornin'  
Could-n't tell right from wrong_

I felt awkward after that, so I made a stupid punny joke. "That was nice, Mrs. Clearwater. Is that what all your customers get when they ask for jam?"

That made her laugh. I think she felt a little sorry for me. We talked a bit about the Chess Records sound. I felt comfortable opening up to Mrs. Clearwater a little bit. I didn't get into the whole story of Charlie and the odd hours he kept as a security guard, but I explained that spent a lot of summer afternoons at the Checkerboard Lounge in Chicago, before they shut the place down. Before I moved to Phoenix and...before everything changed.

Soon enough I was digging into my Harvest Breakfast: three scrambled eggs, two pancakes, veggie sausage, and grits. I had added a biscuit with honey just because it seemed like a shame not to try the biscuits, and a side order of fruit. For nutrition.

It was then that I saw him for the second time in two days. One minute, I was startled by sudden noises and movement behind me as the person in the next booth stood in a huff, threw money onto the table, and started rushing out the door. The next minute, he turned toward me, and I couldn't help but seek out his velvety green eyes. Him. Whatever his name was. I'd seen his eyes three times, and every time, they were different. Today, his eyes were lit up, but his body language was frozen. And now he was cringing.

He marched back toward me, making me reflexively lean back, then past me, to retrieve a flat, oblong package of something heavy from his booth. He spoke to Mrs. Clearwater. "Sorry, Sue. I've got to go, but where do you want this? Sam sent it. I almost forgot." His voice didn't so much ring in my ears as steep there. Deep and resonant, throaty, like a 2 a.m. radio announcer's voice. All that and the face of a marquee idol. It just wasn't fair.

He was talking to Mrs. Clearwater, but staring at my humongous plate of food, frowning, eyes bulging. He shot me a look that turned my blood to ice, and I realized I was staring again. I tried and failed at pushing away all thoughts of what I might look like-yep, sweaty running outfit, greasy hair, puddle-splashed and decorated with cat hair. Eating grits with a spoon I had just been using as a percussion instrument. I was even repulsing myself. He set the package on a nearby shelf at Mrs. Clearwater's direction, and I may or may not have noticed that his shoulders and biceps tested the limits of his flannel shirt. Good grief.

Then he was gone, never breaking his stride. I asked for a new spoon.

~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.

After cleaning myself up and changing at home, I realized the weather was cooling down, the sky blanketed in wooly grey. I put on brown corduroys and a thick brown sweater, making a mental note to mix some more varied colors into my fall wardrobe. As an afterthought, I added a cobalt blue scarf-a gift from Charlie when I told him I was moving from Phoenix to the midwest.

I finalized some paperwork with the administration office and checked to see that the reading lists I had ordered for my students were in stock at the bookstore. Then I made my way to the library.

A pretty, brown-haired reference librarian stood from her desk and came out to the main floor to greet me. She introduced herself. "I'm Angela Weber. You must be Isabella Swan."

I gave a pained smile. What was it with this town, anyhow? Did everybody know each other's business? "Just Bella. Hi."

She nodded her head at my surprised expression. "I recognize you from your job talk last winter."

Ah. My test-run lecture, part of the evaluation process. What had I presented? _Anonymity in Closed Communities_, I think.

"I've been hoping you would come in while I was on desk duty. It isn't the usual practice, but I familiarized myself with your CV because I think your research interests are aligned with the archives I manage."

This was a relief, actually-I had been dreading the chore of navigating the archives on my own. And Angela seemed nice. Friendly and competent.

She left a student in charge of the desk and guided me to the third floor, issuing me a key that would give me access to the special collections. My ring of keys was growing, to my surprise. I knew that this archive was housed here-it had been an important factor in my job search. But as Angela showed me some of the more unusual subsets of records and materials, I could see that she had a sophisticated sensibility about untold stories. I grew more and more relaxed and appreciative to be paired with her as a resource.

"Come on, Bella. Let's hit the farmers market before they pack it up," Angela suggested. "And there's someone there you should meet."

Behind the library, two rows of colorful booths lined the west end of the parking lot. I let myself get caught up in Angela's enthusiasm and picked up some tomatoes, eggplant, and onions. At a booth selling local honey, Angela introduced me to an Emily Uley.

"Emily, Bella is a new hire in the American studies department...she works on material culture and I was thinking the two of you might like to talk about your textile collection."

Angela explained, turning to me. "Emily's family has lived in the region for at least seven generations, and she has a 200-year archive of quilts and tapestries. We've just finished matching their makers with genealogy records."

This did interest me. "That's wonderful." Quilts by themselves weren't my thing, but... "Do you happen to have any diaries or journals?" I asked. Emily looked me in the eye and held my gaze for a moment, evaluating me. Then she nodded, smiling tightly and reaching out a hand to shake mine.

"I do." She said. "You made quite an impression on my aunt Sue this morning, Bella. Come by the farm anytime."

~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.

Angela and I picked up some spinach croissants from the bakery stand and as we wandered, a small group of people at the end of the row seemed to be causing a stir. They were shopping for produce just like everyone else, but in a pack, conversing with each other in the intimate way families have, with bystanders glomming onto them. Pause, chitchat. Pause, chitchat. They were a jumble of linked arms, soft and warm textiles, gloved leather hands. It was like a J Crew catalogue come to life, but with a dash of Twin Peaks. They were striking, all of them, but each in a different way. One of them was Alice. My eyes travelled from one face to the next, trying to put them together as a family, sorting their features out like I was playing a game of _Set_. I couldn't make out much resemblance, but I had no doubt that they were a family. There were six of them-no, seven. The Green-Eyed Cold One was among them. He seemed to be with them.

Now I was staring. And now he saw me staring. I wrested my gaze away, but not my attention. I looked at Angela and asked, "Who are they?"

"Those are the Cullens." Angela nodded her head discreetly at the handsome older pair. "Carlisle and Esme have lived here for ages-they met here as students in the '70s. Carlisle is the town physician. He's semi-retired now...and Esme was on the Board of Trustees for years. Alice, in the short coat, is their daughter, and that's her partner Jasper Hale with her. He's a massage therapist or a physical therapist or something, which is how he met Alice. Um, she's on the dance and performance faculty."

I decided not to interrupt Angela to tell her how I already knew Alice. So this was Jasper. He was a cool drink of water, with long and wavy sandy blond hair down to the middle of his back. He managed to look like an upstanding hippie, if such a thing was possible. Disheveled but clean. Skinny but strong, standing tall and broad-shouldered. He smiled wryly and followed along with rapt attention to Alice's apparently very animated story.

"And Jasper's twin sister Rosalie-that's the tall blonde one. Rose runs the metal and wood shop for the art department, while her boyfriend Emmett, over there lifting up Mrs. Clearwater, is a zoologist."

I took it all in. Sue Clearwater was laughing and batting softly at Emmett, a bear of a man who had her in one arm and a 50-pound sack of potatoes in the other, pretending to balance them against one another. He set her down gently and kissed her cheek. He was all dimples and warm, friendly energy. Rose perused the stalls, from time to time questioning Esme about ingredients or meal plans or some such thing, handing parcels of food to Emmett to carry. She was stunningly beautiful, and-more than that-confident.

Finally Angela nodded toward The Iceman himself. "And that's Edward Cullen. Carlisle and Esme's other child. Alice's brother. He looks young-he is young-but he's tenured, one of the most esteemed faculty here, which is really saying something for a studio art professor. He's on a half-year sabbatical right now, so he doesn't have any teaching duties this semester. We all thought he would be spending it off campus, actually." She appeared to be slightly flustered.

"Not that any of us spend, you know, all day thinking about his comings and goings! Ha!" Angela punctuated that last statement with a wistful shake of her head and a good long stare at Edward's ass, which was now retreating across the parking lot. "I mean, damn."

"Right." I said, lifting my eyebrows. "Objectifying another person is just so...wrong." And then we were both laughing it off. Clearly, I wasn't the only one noticing Edward Cullen. _Edward Cullen_. I rolled the name around in my head. I guess it had a nice ring to it.

She went on. "The whole family is a source of fascination to the community, I guess. Usually, people in a small college town are either academics who arrive here in their thirties and have roots somewhere else, or they're born and raised here but have little to do with the life of the college. The Cullens have always been part of both worlds. It's kind of nice. Like a reminder that there's a whole universe beyond the 'Ivory Tower' and that life-real life-is going on all around us."

She hesitated, biting her lip. She seemed like she wanted to say more, but then she must have thought better of it because she suddenly brightened and offered me a ride home.

"Thanks, Angela, but I don't live far. I'd prefer to walk. And thanks for all of your help today."

Throughout the walk home, I was lost in thought. Big families were such a curiosity to me. For as long as I could remember, it had always been just me and Charlie, or me and Renee. I never suffered over my lack of siblings, but as an adult I wondered about the complexities and nuances of relationships within big families.

How did they make room in their hearts for so many people? Did they feel varying degrees of affection for different people? I imagined what it was like to know that a sibling was just as loved as you, as cherished, as tightly bound by trust and expectations. And I wondered what it felt like not to be the family's main screw-up-but instead, to watch a beloved sibling go astray, to disappoint and then be forgiven. What would you learn from that about how unconditional a parent's love was? Would it strengthen your own ability to forgive, to restore relationships?

I shivered. Now that it was just me and Charlie, I was beginning to think that as the years unfolded, I seemed to get less and less good at really connecting with other people.

I was at my front door. I hadn't noticed the sun setting, but the light was disappearing fast. I set my produce bag down and sat on the stoop as the early fall sky shifted from slate gray to indigo-tinted charcoal.

I was still sitting there when Alice strolled up, pulling a red wagon overflowing with produce, cider, loaves of bread, and a flower bouquet. She waved and shouted to me that she'd join me on the porch after she got her groceries inside. She fumbled with her comically large, heavy key ring, and I felt a pang of longing for the depth and breadth of relationships, the complications and commitments implied by that one cluster of objects. Longing was a step forward for me. I could live with longing, because of the thing that differentiates longing from despair: hope. I sighed and rested on my elbows, closing my eyes to the darkness as I waited.

**Author's Note: **There is no such place as Clearwater, Ohio, as far as I can tell. It is a fictional small town, just as Newcoven College is a totally fictional amalgamation of various small midwestern colleges.


	3. Chapter 2: Portraits

**Twilight is the property of Stephenie Meyer. So are the Twilight characters. Other artists and musicians are cited in the text. Everything else is my original work. **

**Playlist:**

** I Am Part of a Large Family - Great Lake Swimmers**

_ And what am I supposed to do but take good care, good care of you? _

_ We have a lot of work to do, me and you and you and you._

** Help Yourself - Sad Brad Smith**

~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.

**Chapter 2. Portraits **

Ohio was growing on me. I liked my morning routine: wake up, go for a quick or ultra-quick run, read the paper, drink coffee, then head to campus. None of my classes began before 10:00 a.m., so I had some flexibility in my mornings. I called Charlie to check in every few days. Students had been on campus for a week now, and we'd had three days of classes. The students brought a buoyant energy to the campus and I welcomed the change in atmosphere. The place was bustling with activity-student bands performing, athletes training outdoors in the brief window of decent weather, the volunteerism fair. I was busy almost constantly.

My eat-in kitchen got plenty of nice light in the morning, but where I really liked to be was upstairs in my perch. I had figured out that the roof just outside the windows, while not exactly a proper balcony, was large, nearly flat, and perfectly safe for sitting. It wasn't difficult to clamber up onto the desk and ease myself, my laptop, and even my coffee through the windows. Once there, it was all forest, sky, and fresh air. It was a little bit scratchy sitting directly on the roof tiles, but not too bad. I usually had to brush a few twigs out of the way. I had even managed to wire a second pair of speakers in my bedroom, linked to the stereo downstairs _and_ to my laptop, thank you very much. Music was a priority in my life. My biggest problem seemed to be balancing a full cup of coffee on the slanted grade of the roof, but that was nothing new for me, no matter if I was on a roof or sitting at a proper table.

Today was Saturday, so I had more free time than on a weekday. An email arrived from the library telling me a bunch of books I'd requested were available, so I trotted off to claim them. Angela had left a thumb drive for me-selected electronic files she wanted me to see from the special archives. My next stop was my office in Masen Hall, where I unloaded my books and decided to get in a few hours of work. I was just filing away my notes at the end of the day when I realized something was stuck behind the top drawer of Alice's old file cabinet, preventing it from closing.

I wriggled my hand in through the open second drawer and up, reaching to dislodge whatever was in the way. I silently prayed I wouldn't somehow wedge myself in permanently. Easing my elbow around the drawer cautiously, I pulled out a slightly bent 5-by-7 inch photograph. A glossy black and white print.

On the left side of the image, against a backdrop of snowy fir trees on a hill, two figures were tangled mid-air as they fell or wrestled into a snowdrift, clumps flying. Their faces were partly turned away and distorted with smiles-not so much that I couldn't recognize them as Alice and Jasper. But the reason I studied it, the reason I smoothed it out carefully, eyes widening, was that in the foreground, in brilliant high resolution and sharp focus, was a third person. He laughed openly, mouth wide, eyes crinkling and amused, his body contorted with mirth. So radiantly joyful. Edward.

My eyes pored over the image greedily, trying to memorize his brilliant white teeth, the hollow of his throat, the gradations of light reflected in his irises. The playful tilt of his eyebrows. Looking at this photograph made me feel eager to reclaim that sense of calm I'd felt when visiting campus months ago. I associated his face with that feeling, which, I told myself, was why I fixated on him so much.

I realized I hadn't seen that expression, or anything close to it, in the few times I'd come across Edward these past few days. He was always so...cloudy. It didn't make me want to look at him any less; his expressions were a fusion cuisine of emotions. Irritation combined with distraction. Resignation and regret, but with a dash of amusement. A blankness that betrayed the extreme effort behind said blankness. Had I seen all that in just, what, two brief encounters? _Obsessed much, Bella? _All the same, I would give anything to see his face light up like _this_.

Not stopping to second-guess myself, I tacked the photo to the bulletin board above my desk. I told myself I would just keep the photo posted here in plain sight as a reminder to return it to Alice when I saw her next. And in the meantime, if my eyes should wander to it while I was working, what's the harm in that? Never mind that I could have just slid it under her office door...I rationalized that it would give me an excuse to chat her up about Edward, or just make conversation in case our newfound friendship fizzled. It was funny to think of how much had changed in a few short days. I was getting to know my new hometown and its residents-by reputation, anyhow. I felt optimistic. It felt good.

~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.

As it turns out, scheming about ways to hang out with Alice was entirely unnecessary. The next morning, I returned home from a three-mile run to find a bundle and a note propped against my door.

_Since you might not have had the chance or inclination to set up your kitchen yet, I thought you might enjoy some homemade muffins. Please come for dinner tonight-it's a Sunday tradition. You'll meet Jasper and our lovely housemates. 6pm_.

- _Alice._

I had to laugh. Did she know me this well already? I'd had plenty of time to set up my kitchen in a week, but I was dragging my feet about cooking anything that qualified as a proper meal. I unbundled Alice's gift of three enormous blueberry muffins, still steaming. I sat on the stoop in my sweaty t-shirt and shorts and practically inhaled half of one muffin. God, that smelled amazing. Muffins made with fresh berries were always eye-crossingly good, and this version did not disappoint.

Great. Now, not only was I covered in crumbs, but a squirt of blueberry juice was staining the front of my tee. After a quick scan of the street-empty at this hour of the morning-I doused myself with the garden hose. My sports bra was the type that some women in the gym treated like outerwear, but I wasn't about to take off my top. I wrung out the hem of my shirt as best I could and prepared to go inside, scooping up my blue plastic-wrapped Sunday New York Times from behind a bush and awkwardly clutching it without crushing my delicious bundle of treats.

After all that, a shower was called for.

Luxuriating in a whole day free of responsibilities, I walked over to the College's Platt Art Museum. They were featuring a temporary exhibition of photographs from Cindy Sherman's _Film Stills_ series. I had seen some of these in Paris years ago. I remember trying to mimic the mysterious faces in those haunting portraits. It was as if I thought I could decode what those characters were feeling if only I could make myself make that same expression. Sideways glances to something outside of the frame...crafty, secretive, accusatory. Hopeful. Guilty.

I read somewhere about how our brains were wired so that if we forced our faces to smile, we would actually begin to feel happy. It triggered endorphins or something. It wasn't enough to make me go around plastering a smile on my face, but it did make me wonder if it worked for other emotions, too. I thought a lot about it these past couple of years whenever I was with Renee...possibly to keep my mind off of what was happening, or because I hoped I could manage the vibes in the room, or both.

The museum was small but with a beautifully curated collection. Stillness and quiet surrounded me. The clicking of a humidity sensor was the only noise I could hear. That, and my converse sneakers padding along the high-shine floors. I wandered through the student galleries in a wing that connected the museum with the working studios and art classrooms. I stopped myself from heading down the hallway I knew would lead to the faculty offices-to Edward's office. But I did browse the permanent exhibit of faculty work. The studio art department included only eight full time professors, and Edward was one of three specializing in installation and multimedia sculpture.

I found his bio in the row of placards identifying the various artists.

_E.M. Cullen_

_Distinguished Professor of Studio Art_

_Professor Cullen began teaching art at Newcoven College in Fall 2003. His MFA is from the University of Washington. Awarded the prestigious North America Foundation Emerging Artist Award in 2006, he works primarily in multimedia installation, using tactile and sensory media to explore issues of epistemology, experience, and trust._

But where his artwork should have been was another placard. _Exhibit has been temporarily removed by request of the artist._ Puzzling. The other professors had work on display, but in Edward's designated three-foot by three-foot space was just an empty white pedestal.

It was almost time for dinner at Alice's. I headed back across the woodsy open square, passing by the dandelion oak tree, making a detour to the small grocery store in the town square to pick up a halfway decent bottle of red wine. This would be an interesting night. I had had enough of solitude and reflection these past few days, and I was eager to be among people. As I walked toward Alice's, quickening my pace, I wondered nervously about what awaited me there.

~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.

My feet in their woolly striped stockings waved back and forth like windshield wipers as I munched kettle corn. Emmett's tree-trunk thighs next to mine dwarfed me. His knees were bouncing with as much nervous energy as me. The two of us leaned against the couch, where Alice sat with her legs tucked up, occasionally jostling us with her excited rocking. Rosalie sat on the bench to a grand piano, kicking her long legs out in front of her. Emmett and I were haphazardly shouting at Jasper, who stood in front of the fireplace mantle.

"Giraffe..."

"Giraffe Necktie?"

Jasper rolled his eyes and started again, tapping his forearm with two fingers.

"Two words...first word, two syllables...second word, one syllable..."

"Baseball...batter's box...bat!...yes!"

"Necktie Bat?" That couldn't be right. That was no better than giraffe necktie.

"Vampire! Vampire bat!" I shouted, involuntarily leaping up and spilling kettle corn across the area rug.

Jasper collapsed into the plush sofa, laughing. I gave Emmett a high-five. Rose and Alice grimaced at each other, and Rose pressed her lips together.

"Whatever, uneven teams!" They were already over it, Alice scrambling up to take her turn for their team. It had been, I don't know, ten years since I had played charades but somehow it felt like the thing to do when meeting your new neighbor's cobbled-together extended family for the first time.

When I first arrived, I had been introduced to Jasper, Rosalie, and Emmett, who were all lounging in the living room with Alice. I was relieved to find that they followed Alice's example of never probing too deeply into personal questions. They seemed content to discuss whatever was going on in recent days on campus, yet without delving into gossip. This was a style of conversation that took a particular skills. And they were practiced at it.

The contrast between my spare and functional rented house and this warm, richly textured home could not be more extreme, I thought. Everywhere were signs of activity and history. Well-worn books overflowed the deep mahogany built-in shelves, forming neat stacks on the floor next to bins of odd tools, half-finished knitting projects, and piles of tartan wool lap blankets. On and under small tables here and there, fashion magazines mixed with woodworking and outdoors equipment catalogs. Cross-country skiing equipment and camping gear was piled among dozens of pairs of boots and shoes in the mud room off of the kitchen.

The kitchen itself was outfitted like a centerfold spread in Gourmet magazine-a six-burner range with two ovens, chopping block island, an overhead rack of copper and stainless pots and pans. Green plants were wedged between rows of cookbooks on shelves, and at the back of the kitchen was a doorway to an impressive iron-and-glass Victorian greenhouse-still in use, I noted. The kitchen was open to a casual dining area which joined the living room to form an "L" shape.

From where I sat now on the floor, I could see a closed pair of pocket doors leading to what I guessed was a formal dining room, and a grand staircase leading up to the second and third floors. Framed photographs lined the walls-a mix of family portraits and candid shots. A frame above the mantle contained a trio of photos: a wedding photo-Carlisle and Esme, who I recognized from the farmer's market a week ago-as well as a candid of the two of them cuddling a red-headed toddler-Edward-and, finally, a portrait where they held Edward and black-haired Alice, she an even tinier toddler than him. The frame as a whole was labeled with a brass plate reading "1980."

Alice noticed where my attention had wandered, and she confirmed that 1980 was, indeed, a busy year. "That's my brother Edward. He and I are both adopted," she explained. "Carlisle and Esme had always planned to get married, and when the opportunity came up to adopt Edward, they just sped up the process. Instant family. Then I came along a few months later." That explained why there was no family resemblance among them. But it made me wonder, too. Very young couples didn't usually adopt, and when they did, adoptions of infants were more common than toddler-age children. I didn't dwell on it, though. So much pride and contentment was visible on the faces of the young parents in these portraits.

A ding from the stove, along with aromas that were increasingly impossible to ignore, told us that dinner was ready. We moved into the massive kitchen. Alice caught me watching the lot of them as they moved about the room, finishing place settings, taking hot dishes from the oven, selecting wine.

"I guess you've noticed we're not the type of household where one person does all the cooking. Where's the fun in that?," she began. "Don't worry, you're our honored guest tonight, but soon enough we'll have you toiling away over the hot stove right alongside us."

"Maybe we can start you out with putting olives on toothpicks," Jasper teased. "Something simple."

"Thanks, I look forward to it. I might even be able to handle boiling water, eventually."

They were misreading my awkward gawking, though. I wasn't feeling left out. Not exactly. I just loved watching how they interacted. It was like a graceful, choreographed routine, and it told me things about their relationships and their personalities.

When Alice handed Emmett a bottle of wine, he passed it off immediately to Rosalie, who seemed to relish the process of corking and decanting. Jasper kept a lookout for miscellaneous needs, tidying up crumbs, moving sharp knives into the sink, turning pot handles inward so no one would bump into them and scald themselves. The nurturer. Alice, for her part, had a flair for innovation. The little touches she added were simple but somehow completed the meal-like mashing fresh herbs into cold butter for the table.

I had always been a watcher.

And that was why, even though his actions were subtle, I noticed Jasper hesitate-just a waver of his forearm, really-before setting down a sixth place setting. He waited a beat, then set the plate down, looking to Alice, then Emmett, as if gauging their reactions. Alice sighed, and Emmett pressed his lips together in a tight smile, eyes cast down.

Dinner was homemade minestrone soup and lasagna, fresh ciabatta bread, and a salad of fresh greens with toasted walnuts, red beets, and goat cheese. We sat, and Emmett raised a toast: "To new beginnings." He beamed at me, and I smiled back, surprised by the warmth I felt.

As we began to eat, we talked about what it was like for them to share a household as young couples. Of the four housemates, every one of them had lived alone for years after college, even Alice and Jasper, who had been together since meeting when Alice was a dance student-an injured dance student-in Washington, and Jasper was the physical therapist who got her back on her feet...and then some. Alice and Jasper shared a small rental when they moved to Clearwater in 2003, but the idea of a big, bustling home appealed to them, and so, as Alice put it, they "let the plan unfold."

There was a lull in the conversation and Alice cleared her throat gently. "Edward lives in town, too, Bella, but...not with us. It's not that we're not close-in fact, he played a big part in rehabbing this house, and he's part owner, but...he's an artist and he needs a different type of live-work space." Jasper squeezed her shoulder lightly. She shook her head quickly and breezed on, "He's a sort of private person."

The subject of Edward was finished as soon as it started, and all I really gathered from it was that something was going on with him-and his sister and friends wanted to respect his privacy. Jasper started talking about the grand old house, describing the labor of love that it had taken to rehab it into a livable condition, then Rose joked about moving here from Rochester after just one weekend visit to her brother, for no reason but the opportunity to room in an attic garret. The newest housemate was Emmett, who had been dating Rose for about a year when she asked him to move in. That had been six months ago.

We were startled by movement at the back door, as someone simultaneously knocked on it quietly and swung it open.

In walked Edward.

"Sorry I'm late," he shrugged. Five faces gaped at him in surprise.

His nonchalant facade wasn't fooling anybody. Even though the extra plate had obviously been placed for him out of ceremony, to say that Edward joining this dinner party was a surprise would be an understatement. He even seemed surprised to see the clean place setting ready and waiting for him, but he sat down quickly, pausing only to toss his canvas jacket onto a bench by the door. Everyone greeted Edward happily, and Rose began filling his plate without so much as a blink.

Edward turned to me and I was suddenly aware of his closeness. The heat of his body was still radiating out from him, released from the swaddling of his heavy coat. That Earl Grey tea and clean laundry smell wafted toward me. Argh, those eyes. And his skin was as smooth as porcelain. He locked in on my gaze. Ignoring Alice, who was recovering from her shock and preparing to introduce me, he said, "I'm Edward. Edward Cullen. I didn't get a chance to introduce myself at the faculty meeting."

I nodded, mute. His voice was still hanging in the air like a rich fog.

"You're Bella?"

"Yes! Er, yes. It's nice to meet you," I finally managed to eke out.

Alice seemed eager to start a conversation, tripping over her words a little. "We've just been boring Bella to de-to pieces-all about our lives and we barely know the first thing about her."

Edward took his cue from her. "So. Bella. Tell us about you." This was a lighthearted Edward, one eyebrow cocked. This was new. It was disorienting, in fact. Not to mention that I was uncomfortable about going into a lot of detail about myself. It must have been plain on my face that I was working out how to respond, because Edward tried a different tack. Was that a flash of sympathy in his eyes? I may have imagined it. His face softened.

He changed his tack. "Tell us about your work."

This was probably the easiest thing to talk about, if not especially fascinating. Edward, leaning back and beginning to eat his salad, waited patiently for me to talk.

"Well, I just finished my Ph.D. from University of Chicago...even though I was living in Phoenix to complete my dissertation. My appointment is in the American Studies department here, and my focus area is material culture. That means...objects, basically, and the ways people use them. I study what it tells us about things like social structures, power dynamics, identities."

That was my usual spiel. And usually it was enough to satisfy people.

Not this time. "What, like _Antiques Roadshow_?" asked Emmett.

"Well...sort of. On _Roadshow_, when they talk about why furniture was built with a certain features or functions during a certain era, that's related to material culture," I replied.

Alice jumped in. "Right! Once I saw this episode with a huge armoire, and the antiques man said in colonial times people were taxed based on how many rooms their houses had, which included closets, so the trend was to build these armoires in order to avoid taxes."

"Yeah, that's the idea. I'm not an antiques appraiser, of course. But I could tell you why this place has such a wide staircase," I said, gesturing toward the massive oak stairs near where we had just been playing charades.

Five pairs of eyes followed my gesture toward the staircase, then moved back to me, staring blankly. "Hoop skirts." Hell, this was nerdy as all get-out, but I figured I might as well show my new friends just what they were dealing with. Express bus to nerd central.

I continued, "I'm going to estimate that this house was built in the late 1880s?"

Jasper nodded. "1887."

"Well, by that time women were wearing more bustles than hoop skirts, but the architectural style had already shifted to accommodate the three-foot-wide hoop skirts that were popular in the 60s. The 1860s, that is."

"Is your focus more on women's fashions, then, or architecture?" Alice asked me.

"Oh, neither one, really. I'm teaching a seminar on early American city planning, but my main research interest is actually in things that have to do with...family life and privacy." I glanced around the table to see if any eyes had glazed over yet. So far, so good. I continued, "Objects and technologies throughout history that were made with the express purpose of protecting a person's privacy. One familiar example would be, you know, a teenage girl's diary. They have those little chintzy locks, right? Somebody could easily break the lock, but that would be a violation of trust. So a sort of unspoken contract develops: teenagers write down their deepest and darkest secrets, and parents agree not to intrude. But a third thing happens, too, which is that these teenagers grow up understanding that they will have an inner life and a public life."

Alice, bless her heart, jumped in. "Huh. You know, is it true that in medieval days, nobody was ever alone? I saw this thing on the history channel about how large households of dozens of people-landowners and servants-all lived together, sleeping in one large room in order to share the fireplace, couples having sex, taking sponge baths, women giving birth, you name it." This was kind of an exaggeration, but I laughed and confirmed that it was pretty much true.

There were some snickers at the image this conjured up. Jasper pressed me, "What about the booths used for confession at church? Would that count?'"

I was curious about why Jasper though of confession booths so easily. "Well, not strictly speaking, but it's related. That stuff is about protecting a person's identity _without_ protecting privacy-after all, it's the private thoughts and actions that need to come out in a confession, right? A similar example is the fake login names people give themselves when they want to chat about their fetishes on the internet."

Jasper shot a quick glance at Alice and looked back at me. He looked a little stunned, eyes widening. "Um..." Emmett chuckled, and very kindly steered me away from my tangent. "Rose used to be a locksmith, you know." He gazed at Rose, moon-eyed. She looked back at him, puzzled. "Then she finally picked the lock to my heart and she hung it all up." Their cheesy display prompted some good-natured jabs.

Through it all, Edward was quiet, but listening. He took an absent-minded bite of his lasagna, then seemed to notice how delicious the homemade meal was, and he gave Alice a meaningful look. His eyes rolled halfway back in his head and he sucked in his cheeks comically, pantomiming ecstasy. It was a playful moment that hinted at the depth of their connection. There was such compassion in her eyes just then, I saw a sister who missed her brother deeply.

I suddenly felt like I was a fifth wheel. Or a sixth wheel. Whatever. I reminded myself of how caught-off-guard everyone had been to see Edward here-of course they would want some time alone with him for once, since he apparently wasn't a frequent visitor.

I started to stack my dishes into a neat pile in front of me and began to scan the room for my keys and scarf. Suddenly, my arm was immobilized. I looked down to see Edward's hand on my wrist. Warm. Firm. "Stay," he whispered. "Pie. There's always pie on Sunday nights." I couldn't form words. I just nodded. As he released me, I could swear I felt his pinky finger slip under the edge of my sweater sleeve and linger on my wrist bone.

When I looked around the table, I saw three other pairs of eyes fixated on my wrist. Why so serious? Was a bomb about to explode? Was that the signal? Only Alice was looking elsewhere: at Edward's face. She looked like she was sending him a coded message through mental telepathy or something.

Quietly, she said, "Nobody go anywhere. I'll start a pot of decaf."

I was pretty sure I had never heard a person sound so certain about anything in all my life.

~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.

When I finally made my way back across the driveway to my side door, I was stuffed, overtired, and a little bit giddy. I had enjoyed the rest of the evening, managing to stay calm and to seem relatively indifferent to Edward's presence-all the while, my wrist bone burning with the memory of his glancing touch. He was amiable and relaxed throughout the evening, which suited everyone fine, apparently.

As I unwound my scarf from around my neck, I took a last look back across the way, through the picture window framing this family of sorts. Alice and Jasper slow-danced playfully in the living room. Emmett strummed a guitar on the sofa, while Rose looked on and Edward rested against the cushions, eyes half-closed, his tapping foot the only sign he wasn't asleep. I could see from here that dirty pie plates and coffee cups littered the tables. The overall effect was chaotic, but comforting at the same time.

Here was my fantasy of a big family with a full life, come true. I wanted to caution myself against hoping. But then I caught my own reflection in the window, as if cut and pasted into the scene across the way like a ghost. Could I belong among those people? And just as I turned away to climb the stairs, I saw-I thought I saw-a pair of searching green eyes find mine across the distance.

~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.

**AN: A google images search for Cindy Sherman will turn up some of her amazing **_**Film Stills**_** if you're interested. Thanks for reading, please tell me what you think! I promise, less scene-setting and more action (and a couple of twists) are coming...and some EPOV! I'm traveling this week so my goal to make next update sooner rather than later.  
**


	4. Chapter 3: Light Bulbs and Tea

**Twilight is the property of Stephenie Meyer. So are the Twilight characters. Other artists and musicians are cited in the text. Everything else is my original work.**

**Playlist**

** Love is a Stranger - Martha Wainwright cover version**

** Tightrope - Yeasayer**

_ So you're wishing that you never did_

_ All the embarrassing things you've done_

_ And you're wishing you could set it right_

_ And you're wishing you could stay the night_

**Chapter 3. Light Bulbs and Tea  
**

I was officially a harebrained idiot. So much for my two-wheeled self-sufficiency. I had decided, on the spur of the moment, to hop on my bike and run some errands, instead of feeling sorry for my sad self sitting alone and aimless. I was out of coffee filters, light bulbs needed replacing, and I figured crowds would be nonexistent. Well.

My first venture beyond a three-mile radius from home and here I was, stranded in the parking lot of a closed and darkened shop at eleven p.m., with a deflated bike tire and two panniers full of groceries. And my repair kit locked securely in my faculty office.

I considered wheeling my bike home, but the whipping wind and sharp pellets of rain like pine needles jabbing my skin deterred me. So I did what I had a vague idea people in small towns did: I texted a friend for help. I texted Alice.

Six minutes later my phone rang.

I didn't recognize the number. Tentatively, I answered. "This is Bella Swan."

"Bella."

The voice, I recognized.

"This is Edward. Edward Cullen." He knew my name? Wait, that's right, we had met. Sunday dinner. I hadn't been dreaming. But...my phone number?

"H-hello?"

"Alice called me. She said you sent a text about your tire kit and..." I could hear the hesitation in his voice. He knew as well as I did that we were near-strangers. "She's at our parents' with Jasper, she won't be back until tomorrow. So...I'm in Masen Hall now..."

Ah. He was Alice's stand-in. "Oh! Er...yeah, I'm over at the pick-n-save across town with a flat tire, and my stupid repair kit is in my other bag in my office...gosh, thank you, I really feel terrible about bothering you." I rolled my eyes, impossibly annoyed with myself. Damsel in distress was not my preferred mode.

"It's no trouble, Bella." He wasn't exactly verbose. I liked him saying my name. I liked not needing to correct him. And his voice was as I remembered it: steady, certain, deep.

In my mind's eye, I could see my messenger bag sitting where I had left it atop my desk, locked away in Masen Hall. Shit. He was going to be in my office. Edward Cullen was going to be in my office. I mentally relived my past few days to try to recall what sort of deeply personal or embarrassing junk I'd left lying around. Tampons? Actually, that wasn't embarrassing. There wasn't a man alive over 30 who hadn't seen tampons before, and anyhow, I kept those in a drawer. But what about...my heart stopped. The photo. Mortifying. How would I explain that his picture was posted on my cork board? That his was the _only_ picture - - the only thing whatsoever - - posted on my cork board? I mean, I guess Alice and Jasper were in the picture, too, but who am I kidding. It was a picture of Edward, looking hot as all get-out. Stalker alert. Christ.

The drizzle was starting to turn into a steady rain. I inched back further under the eaves of the store roof. Better to just get this whole episode over with. "It'sinthemessengerbagonthedesk."

A pause. Then Edward's voice. "I think you're forgetting something."

"What?" I shouted a little. I was near tears. I blamed stress.

"Your security code? I'm standing in the hallway. Looking at your door. _Dr. Swan._"

Right. I mentally filed away the way it felt to hear him call me that - - gah - - and took a deep breath. "The code is six letters...'I-C-E-M-A-N.' " There was no way he needed to know this was my own private nickname for him. One of several. Argh, why couldn't I get a grip? I closed my eyes.

Edward's voice startled me. "Top Gun, or O'Neill?"

"Huh?" Was I hallucinating? Nothing was making sense.

"Your code. Is it a reference to the Top Gun character or the Eugene O'Neill play?"

A part of me...a snobby part...was impressed that he would know _The Iceman Cometh_, much less who wrote it. Then again, O'Neill was a master. My mind reeled a little, landing in an inappropriate place, as usual. The play's title was based on a barroom joke where a husband just getting home from work yells up the stairs to his wife: Has the iceman come yet? And she answers: No, but he's breathing hard. The thing about this joke that always struck me was that even in the old days, even in the days before refrigerators, when people still had ice delivered, torrid affairs were going on. Nothing modern about it. Speaking of breathing hard, I was on the verge of hyperventilating.

"Uh...both, sort of." I lied. "I mean, a self-respecting humanities nerd such as myself has to go with O'Neill. America's poignant chronicler of dreams and disillusionment. All that. But on the other hand, sweaty, shirtless Val Kilmer was a sight to behold in 1986. Maybe not so much nowadays, with the potbelly...but the dude is 50 years old..." Great, now I couldn't turn off the faucet of my mouth. Maybe I thought I could so effectively distract Edward with my blathering that he'd just get my kit and get out without registering any other details about my office. For instance, my picture. Of him.

Then, suddenly, the tables were turned and it was Edward distracting me, because the next thing he said threw me for a loop.

"I don't like you because you're dangerous." He sort of growled it.

_What on Earth?_

He...he doesn't like me? Because I'm dangerous? _I'm_ dangerous? And then, miraculously, my brain caught up. He was just quoting Val Kilmer's famously cheesy-bordering-on-homoerotic line to Tom Cruise in Top Gun. All I could do was laugh. Weakly. It was immediately obvious to me that the words, and Edward's throaty voice saying the words, were etched into my brain.

He was talking again. "Got it. I'm on my way. You're at the pick-n-save on Route 8?" Well, that was quick. I confirmed my location and jammed my phone into my pocket. _I don't like you because you're dangerous. _Yep. It was already a tape loop in my head.

~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.

As I waited, I tipped my head back against the cinder block wall and closed my eyes to the harsh fluorescent overhead, recalling the conversation Alice and I had had earlier that week. We were backstage at the theater space where she was choreographing a new dance for the annual halloween festival. She was sorting through wardrobe archives while I read through Angela's selections from the library's special collection on my computer. At some point I noticed that the rack of dance costumes was somewhat...unusual.

"Cripes, Alice, just what kind of dancer are you?" I looked at her with new eyes, and she peered back with a knowing look. These outfits looked like something out of a Lady Gaga video - - but less overtly sexy, more strange and evocative. Gaga crossed with Matthew Barney or Julie Taymor. Luxurious fabrics in dense textures and colors flowed this way and that, giving a sense of depth and movement even while still on the hangers.

"Modern, silly." Yeah, that was obvious.

I reached out a tentative hand to feel the spongy orange barnacles covering one particularly extravagant floor-length ball gown. Alice gave the okay. "You can touch it."

"You know, Edward helped me make this. He helped with..." she grouped together about three quarters of the rack. "...All of these."

The difference between the two sets of costumes was remarkable. The post-Edward costumes were still very beautiful, but more minimal, the colors more muted.

"I guess you could say that without his collaboration these past few years, my work has benefitted from a more focused point of view. But I never felt cramped collaborating with Edward. I always loved it." She dropped the feathered sleeve she was toying with. It was refreshing, how certain Alice could be.

"We were together all the time as children. He never wanted me to be alone, because he knew it scared me. Almost from the day I was adopted, I clung to him, practically, and he never showed any irritation if it did bother him. And he always had endless energy for projects-mixing colors for our sand castles by pouring finger paints straight into the sand, pressing hundreds of huge leaves from our catalpa tree to wallpaper my room." At first she looked more happy than wistful, but when she turned her gaze to me I could see that she knew fully well that the person she was describing was worlds away from the Edward I had met.

"And he was always so hands-on, exploring, touching and feeling everything. The bark of trees. Icicles. He needed to have his hands on everything. Once I even caught him tasting an orchid in Esme's garden. It's like it was inevitable that his art would have such a tactile quality. You should see his work, Bella..." She trailed off, not every trying to hide her melancholy now.

I could see that there was a fierce quality to Alice underlying her cheerful, outgoing personality. She was physically strong, being a dancer, and she had already shown herself to be protective of her family. But there was something more. A steely resolve that was hers and hers alone-a point of view she insisted on expressing to the world. It made her seem that much more reliable to me.

"Alice." I hesitated only for a second, knowing she would share only what she wanted to. "What happened?"

She didn't answer me straightaway. "Edward has a good heart. He has a perfect heart, I think. I don't mean that he treats people perfectly, or does the perfect thing every time, but he feels things with his whole heart. And he is honest." She sat down and folded her arms across her chest, glancing toward the small window. It was getting dark.

"Three years ago, he hurt someone. That's the way he sees it. Some people think that what she did...she hurt him as well. It's not my story to tell, but...trust me, there's lots of hurt to go around. Edward, well, he withdrew from people almost totally." Now she looked back at me, and I could see the trouble written on her forehead, in the tremor of her chin.

"He spends most of his time alone, except for what little time he spends with the family and two or three old friends from the community." Her eyes welled up and she turned her body completely away from the rack of extravagantly crafted outfits. Her voice was barely above a whisper. "And the worst part is...I don't know if he's making art anymore. Here is a person who knows and understands his world by touching it, feeling it, really being inside it with all of his senses...and, through his art, showing others how beautiful the world is. But now he is punishing himself by cutting himself off from all of that. It breaks my heart. He is still an excellent studio art teacher, but he hasn't shown any new work in all this time."

She sighed and caught her breath, breathing deeply. "I don't need him to collaborate with me again, I just want him to use his talent, and I want him to be happy."

And that was all I got out of her - - all I wanted to get out of her - - that night. I tried not to dwell on this "_she_" Alice had mentioned. We packed up our things and headed home.

~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.

A pair of approaching headlights broke me out of my reverie. Within minutes, I was sitting shotgun next to Edward in a well-worn red pick-up, rumbling down the road. So much for fixing my own flat and showing off my independent streak. I was half-drenched. My bike and groceries were tucked into the truck bed behind us, protected from the rain by a tarp.

"Thank you again, Edward. I'm usually more well-prepared and I don't typically rely on being bailed out by other people."

"It's my pleasure." Was it? His voice sounded too controlled. I could detect neither pleasure nor annoyance in it.

"Your truck is...great." That sounded lame. But I meant it.

"It's not mine. But I agree, it's a great truck."

Ever the enigma. I started to give him directions, nervously. "I live..." But I trailed off. He knew where I lived. He raised an eyebrow and finished my sentence for me.

"Next door to my sister? I know."

I peeked at him. He was impossible to read. He mostly just seemed...at ease. The hint of a smile threatened to tug the corners of his mouth. Any minute now.

Once we pulled into my driveway, he insisted on helping me unload my bike and carry my semi-wet groceries into the house, darting through the downpour into the kitchen door at the side of the house.

And then, instead of bolting out the door, Edward lingered. He still had his tan canvas Carhartt coat on, and I could see a plaid flannel and a t-shirt under that. His dark jeans were darker near the ankles with rain, but he didn't seem uncomfortably soaked. He leaned against the door frame, watching me put items into the cabinets. Every time I glanced at him, he was just looking at me steadily. It was sort of unnerving - - but he seemed totally at ease, so I shrugged it off. I may have actually physically shrugged at one point. Who knows. Why was it so hard to simply put away my groceries all of a sudden?

"Crap." I mumbled. "I forgot coffee filters." My primary reason for going in the first place. That was going to put a serious damper on my morning. I grimaced. From the next bag, I pulled out a pack of fresh light bulbs to replace my burnt out ones for the ceiling fixture. Without a word, Edward took the pack from me and reached up to swap out the bulbs. My, he was tall. With long arms.

He worked in silence for a few moments, then spoke up. "You know, I used to live here."

That was unexpected. I was on my toes, reaching for a high shelf, but I lowered myself back to the floor, as if I needed both feet flat on the ground to listen to him.

He continued, "Mmm-hmm. Six years ago. Alice, Jasper, and I went in together to buy the house next door, back when it was a total shambles. The three of us, plus Rose, did a lot of the rehab work ourselves so I rented this place, and Alice and Jasper rented the Crowley place across the street. I lived here for two years."

He flipped the switch on and we were both suddenly blinking in the blinding glare. He mumbled "That works," and flipped it off again just as fast. Good grief! Yes, much better with just the dim back stairwell light on. I patted my rain-matted hair helplessly.

Suddenly, he moved close to me, snaking his arm out beside my rib cage in a gesture that made me think he was about to waltz with me. Only instead of clutching and twirling me like a portion of my brain was already imagining, he just grasped a box of pasta from the counter and lofted it into a high shelf.

"These shelves always were a little too high." Gah. He practically whispered that, since he was standing so close to me. He leaned back against the counter and folded his arms.

Eager to cut the silence, I stammered the first thing that came to mind. "So...since you've lived here...you've gotta be missing that roof access, right? I mean, it's like a deck, almost, and the view is..." I trailed off. Shit, did I really just suggest that Edward might want to be in my bedroom? At midnight? Ugh. I decided to just keep talking. "It's my favorite thing about this house." At least I hadn't mentioned how gorgeous it would be out there under the stars and the full moon.

He didn't have an answer to my question, mercifully. He frowned, his eyes darkening the slightest bit, and he didn't nod or shake his head. He just changed the subject, nodding toward the package in my hand. "What kind of tea did you get?"

I bobbled the tea a little, then quickly recovered. _Oh, just some Earl Gray tea, because it reminds me of the way you smell_. "Um, Earl Gray. I think. Would...you like a cup?"

He hummed and took a seat, which I took to mean he would take me up on my offer. Of course he wanted a cup of tea after being chilled to the bone helping me out of a jam. Where were my manners?

Five minutes later, he twirled a spoon of honey into his tea, casual as can be. It was now well past midnight.I pulled my knees up to my chest and nestled my own warm tea mug against my thighs, warming myself a bit.

"Bella, I need to ask you about something I saw in your office," he said. He was looking me straight in the eye, a wary look on his face. Shit. He's seen the photo. My heart flew into my throat. I could feel the blush rising. I wasn't just going to blurt it out. I closed my eyes and waited for him to say it.

He went on. "What is..._Privacy and the Construction of Intimacy_?" Now my eyes popped open. This wasn't about the photo. This was the title of my book-well, manuscript, anyways-that I was working on publishing from my dissertation.

I let out a slight breath.

"It's...my book. But I guess you can gather that."

An amused expression crept onto his face. "Yes, I gathered that. But, I was hoping you could tell me a little more."

"So...what it's about? I mean, are you sure? Because this academic stuff..." I winced, halfway hoping to talk him out of asking me about this.

"Yes, I'm sure. I want to know. I'm...sort of interested in privacy," he ventured.

This made sense, honestly. Edward did seem to be somewhat overly concerned with privacy, as a matter of fact. I fished around for a way to explain. Hopefully this wouldn't put him to sleep.

"Well, you remember me talking the other night about, you know, objects with locks that signify privacy?"

Oh my God, this couldn't be more boring. What had I devoted my life to, again? Edward was nodding. Not nodding off, but nodding in an encouraging way.

"This book is about the social contracts people create to protect their privacy, and the simple devices that facilitate that. Taking the example of the teenager's diary that I mentioned the other night at dinner...I argue that a locking diary, as an object and a cultural phenomenon, facilitates a young woman asserting a right to an inner life and a public life. Different subcultures have varying notions of rights to privacy. And in each case, it carries over - - at least, I argue it does - - into the relationships people form as adults. The intimacy they are capable of."

Edward still looked interested...as far as I could tell. He was still making eye contact, and crease between his eyebrows told me he wasn't totally checked out.

Now he grinned, testing me. "What about teenage guys? Not too many guys I knew kept diaries. I didn't."

Hah. For a fleeting moment, I considered glossing over my take on this, but...what the hell. It would all come out in my book eventually. "A lot of boys do keep journals. But for boys, it's more about doors that lock, not diaries that lock." I watched his face for any sign that he caught where I was going with this. Nope. He looked at me expectantly.

"Because of, you know, masturbation. It's...a way of asserting that sexual thoughts and fantasies are natural. And that, instead of being ashamed, it's legitimate...preferable, really...to keep that stuff to one's self and, eventually, one's partner. On the other hand, when boys are actively prevented from having privacy during puberty and beyond, it creates an association between sex and dishonesty. And shame." Normally, I would have insisted in a footnote that masturbation wasn't an activity limited to guys, but now was hardly the time.

"Oh. Right. That makes...total sense." His eyes didn't betray any embarrassment, but he looked down at his tea mug and his mouth hung open a bit as he slowly turned his mug in a full circle.

He kept his eyes down as he asked me a question. "So, that stuff about the diary, how you say it carries over into relationships and intimacy...do you mean that it conditions people to withhold secrets from a partner? Even in a serious relationship or marriage?"

"Oh, no. Actually...I think the opposite is true." In fact, Edward had just stumbled into the aspect of my research that interested me most, and I grew thoughtful. I wanted to explain this right. "I think that people really know what intimacy can mean when they have well-developed notions of privacy...when they have a rich inner life they've never shared with anyone before. It can be very powerful to let someone in...when you know that you could just as easily keep them out. Intimacy is...consent. It's more than consenting to a physical act, but consenting to let someone really _see_ and _know_ you. One layer at a time, maybe."

Now Edward was wearing a truly priceless expression. I wished my eyes were cameras so I could capture this look and study it later. His hand was on his chin, fingers covering his lips, but I could see that his jaw was slightly open. His head was cocked to the side, so he was looking at me askance. I think he was holding his breath, because he wasn't moving. At all. Wait, now his tongue was moving inside his cheek. His eyes smoldered beneath heavy brows and he narrowed them. That's when I noticed his lashes. And that's when I noticed I was unabashedly staring at him. Come to think of it, what expression was on my face?

"Hmmm." Edward roused himself from his trance and stood up, wobbling. "It's getting late."

He had put his mug in the sink and was halfway to the door before I came to my senses enough to go through the motions of saying goodbye and thanking him again for his help. I flushed when I realized the clock read 12:42, embarrassed to have kept him so long. I followed him to latch the screen door behind him.

He was at the bottom of the stairs and I was a few steps above him when he spun back as if remembering something. His face was suddenly inches from mine, eye level with me.

"Bella, one more thing..." He met my eyes, smirking inexplicably, because honestly everything about this person was inexplicable, I decided. His voice was quiet and deep, warmed by the hot tea, hanging thickly in the air between us. He continued, dragging his gaze across my face, "I was wondering...why do you have my picture on the wall in your office?"

The room around me froze and disappeared from my conscious mind. It was like I had tunnel vision blinding me to everything but his mossy, soft eyes.

His question rang in my ears. Oh my god. _What must he think of me? Has he had that in his head all night, this whole time?_ Of course he had. I hardly knew how to respond.

As it turned out, I didn't need to. Not in any sort of usual way. I realized that Edward's face was still unnervingly close to mine, and he was making no effort to move away. And his eyes were alive with fierce energy. And I was bolted to this spot, an unfamiliar heat scorching every nerve from within. And I realized...he was going to kiss me.

~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.

**AN: ! These chapters aren't too long, are they? Got to end somewhere! I'll be out of the country and unplugged for a few days (conveniently), but still on track to update within a week!**


	5. Chapter 4: The Light and the Darkness

**AN: I'm so wowed by the feedback so far, thanks! So glad people are enjoying! Fair warning...don't get too excited, things aren't going to be smooth sailing for these two from the get-go. As you will see by the end of this chapter. Twilight is the property of Stephenie Meyer. So are the Twilight characters. Other artists and musicians are cited in the text. Everything else is my original work.**

**Playlist (links are on my profile):  
Sleepyhead - Passion Pit  
**_You were one inch from the edge of this bed.  
I dragged you back a sleepyhead, a sleepyhead._**  
The Orchids - Califone's cover (original is by Psychic TV)**

**Chapter 4: The Light and the Darkness**

_I realized that Edward's face was still unnervingly close to mine, and he was making no effort to move away. And his eyes were alive with fierce energy. And I was bolted to this spot, an unfamiliar heat scorching every nerve from within. And I realized...he was going to kiss me._

Seven things happened next, in quick succession. I'm not sure how I processed it all. It was like a spare lobe of my brain snapped to life just in order to store it all away. My deep subconscious weighed in: "_This is the Edward Cullen kiss, brain. The one you've been fantasizing about. It's not going to happen a second time, so remember this._"

Oh, and I did.

First, I felt Edward's hot breath. He was so close to me I could feel the air swirling gently around either side my face. The second thing that cemented itself into my brain was the vision of his translucent eyes boring into me, shards of color radiating out from an inky center, glances of light sparkling from deeper than I would have expected. Next, I let my eyes drift closed, my eyelashes floating through that cushion of warm air. The fourth thing that happened was that I _heard_ his breath, a continuation of the same slow exhale, measured and controlled. I could smell the damp fabric of his coat, the tea and honey, something spicy and earthy I couldn't name. That was number five. Six: I felt the warmth of his face like a radiator, my own personal sun just millimeters from my skin. And finally, I felt his lips on mine.

And I was alive.

For a moment, I was aware of nothing but his lips. They were soft, moving so slowly, not so much gentle as lazy. But not really lazy, more..._languid_. Unhurried. For some reason, it gave me a jolt of excitement to realize he was taking his sweet time kissing me, like it was the most natural thing in the world. And that...that made me begin to kiss him back in a less than lazy way. I leaned in, and he pulled my lower lip between his, and I felt the ridge of his lower row of teeth graze against my lower lip softly, slowly, deliberately, pressing my lip into my own teeth. Somebody moaned. I think it was me.

I sent up a tiny prayer of thanks that he wasn't a puckerer or a tonsil-plunger. This man could kiss. Oh, god. Why didn't I find it gross that I could feel the rough surface of his tongue trail along my throat? My heart was beating so hard I was sure he had found my pulse with his tongue and that just made me...weak.

His teeth were grazing my jaw...not biting me, but exploring, the way I might test the firm skin of an apple before breaking the surface. _God, I had never thought about biting an apple like that. What was happening to my brain? _But there would be plenty of time for biting apples tomorrow, some other time, because for now all I wanted to never stop doing was: kiss Edward Cullen.

I was torn between the urge to pull him toward me, and the need to keep from hyperventilating. I tilted my face to the ceiling so I could take a deep breath. The bare bulb above the stairs cast a cold light on us. When I bent my head down again, a strand of my hair fell down onto his face. I was two steps above him, and it made me only just an inch taller than him. His fingers found my hairline then, barely grazing my skin as he tucked my hair back and nuzzled my cheek with his nose, his mouth, his chin. I kept my eyes open for a moment, watching his hooded eyes blink in slow motion. His eyelashes grazed my cheekbone. Slight stubble on his jaw tickled me as his mouth roamed my collarbone, my forehead, my temples, the notch below my ear. Oh, the magic notch.

His strong hands were in my hair now, tensing and gripping without really pulling my hair. I wouldn't have minded. I don't think I'd had ever had the urge to feel my hair pulled before, but lots had changed in the course of five minutes. Ten minutes? _How long had it been?_ I felt drunk.

Now I wrapped my arms around his torso, clutching, but my small hands couldn't seem to make a dent in his bulky coat. I felt his hands leave my hair and reach back to grasp my wrists. I prepared myself to put an end to this kiss, but his lips never left mine as he tugged on my hands and moved them inside his coat, where it was warm and soft flannel and his whole body was practically vibrating. He was hot and alive in there. I wrapped my arms around him and reflexively pulled him toward me, clutching flannel and the thick muscle of his back and he released a grunt into my mouth. _Jesus. _

When did it get so sweaty in here? As if he could read my mind, Edward smoothed my brow, chuckling softly, peppering kisses on my nose and across my eyelids and eyebrows, catching his breath.

Both of my hands reached up to his shoulder blades. Through his ribcage, I could feel how fast his heart was racing. He mirrored my arm position, gathering me flush against him, grasping more feverishly now, and that's when he let out a deep, throaty groan. I turned us so his back was against the wall and he parted his legs, one foot on the stair, one on the floor.

A flush of pink lit up his pale skin like instant sunburn, blooming from the neck of his plaid flannel, reaching the tips of his ears. There was something so unprotected about it, so vulnerable...when I allowed myself to imagine he was feeling a fraction of what I was feeling, I lost a little bit of my sanity and let go even more.

I was losing track of Edward's mouth, everywhere at once. His lips flew from my hair and forehead to my mouth and face quickly now, then back again. Our teeth collided. Gently. His eyes squeezed shut. He dusted his open mouth across my jawline and cheekbone. And now: breath only, his lips not even touching me. He moved his thumb over my lips, his hands learning the topography of my neck and collarbones. He bent his head down, pressing his nose into my shoulder, breathing, and I massaged the back of his head, entwining my hands in his soft hair. Our movements slowed eventually and from time to time I rested the full length of my body on his, savoring the heat and earthy smell of him. Was it weird that I felt like it would be totally reasonable to fall asleep in his arms, standing up in the stairwell?

Finally, he spoke. "Bella."

"Bella, you are dead on your feet. You need sleep." There was a smile in his voice, though, and as he squeezed my arms gently I knew that he was right.

We both stood and blinked drowsily in the too-bright stairway light.

"Are you going to drive home like this?" I asked.

"I'll just crash next door," he confessed. "Alice and Jasper aren't even home, remember?"

It seemed like so long ago that Edward was breaking that news to me over the phone - - saying that Alice was at Carlisle and Esme's - - but it was just hours ago. I looked at the clock. It was 1:45 in the morning.

I laughed to myself, delirious with sleepiness. Did that even count as a first kiss? We had been making out for almost an hour. I would obsess about this later, I would analyze it and agonize over it, but for now I was just plain delirious.

Edward gave me a quick hug and kissed the top of my head once more, cheerfully, before whispering "Good night, Bella," and lurching himself out the door. I watched him as he crossed the driveway to Alice's. He was a shadow, backlit by the streetlight, but just before he entered the house he turned and gave me a last look. I wondered if he could see me smiling.

~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.

Morning light leaked in, just barely, through my east-facing windows. I blinked against it, resisting, clinging to the remnants of a brilliantly realistic dream. My lips even felt pink and swollen - - a nice touch. Bit by bit, as consciousness returned, I allowed that it hadn't been a dream. No. This was no dream. My memory was crystal clear.

_Edward humming, rousing himself from his trance and standing up, wobbling. _

_Edward at the bottom of the stairs, turning back as if remembering something. _

_Edward's face face suddenly inches from mine, eye level with me. _

_Edward's smirk. "Bella, one more thing...I was wondering...why do you have my picture on the wall in your office?"_

I couldn't let go of this exchange, turning it over and over as if the meaning behind it would reveal itself somehow. Did he kiss me to tease me? Was he trying to teach me a lesson? No...it seemed like...plain old fashioned flirting. Was he even supposed to be capable of such a thing? I recalled Alice's words - - _he withdrew from people almost totally_ - - and I recalled what I had observed in him myself. No, he wasn't a flirt.

And yet...none of it made sense when I weighed it against what I felt from him. For him. It was all real, all right. I had never...ever...been kissed like that. I threw the covers over my face completely, taking a moment. I didn't dare to hope that this meant Edward was breaking his no-socializing rule.

Then again, I did hope.

Because, truly, I wanted to be kissed like that again. And again. Well, there were some things I needed to discuss with him first, but then I wanted to be kissed like that again.

Enough was enough. I squirmed and stretched my arms, mussing my hair out of my face. The morning light was weak, filtered by heavy layers of gray clouds like steel wool. The air felt cool on my face.

My eye was drawn to papers on my desk rustling in a breeze from the window - - had I left it cracked open like that? And then, something else. A bundle of paper coffee filters was propped on the desk just inside the window, coiled into a tight cone shape and rubber-banded together with a single white orchid. A note was tucked inside the band. I leapt up and grabbed it.

_Bella -_

_As a matter of fact, I did miss the roof access. I do. Trespassing, I know_ - - _forgive me. Have a wonderful morning. _

_Edward_

I pondered the bundle in my hands. It had never occurred to me that this roof access business worked as a point of entry, too. And that people could undoubtedly see in just as easily as I could see out - - though only if they were on the roof. This was a bit disconcerting. At least Edward had the self-awareness to allude to it in his note.

My heart crumpled a bit. The gesture was simple and lovely, and hell if I didn't love the idea of a fresh pot of coffee. I hadn't been expecting this day to contain anything simple and lovely at all. Because today was a day that would be filled with painful reminders and pure self-pity; today was my birthday. I grumbled and shuffled downstairs.

Ten minutes later, I was standing in front of my coffee pot, watching the steaming liquid drip down as time seemed to creep by. During the lull, naturally, my gaze and my mind drifted back to the stairway. That kiss.

I didn't know it at the time, but this was the moment - - waiting for the coffee pot, reliving the shock and bewilderment of that wholly unfamiliar type of kiss, wondering when my astonished joy would wear off - - that, years later, I would isolate as one of the major turning points of my life. Because it never would wear off. It never did.

But in that moment, I wouldn't have had time to imagine such a possibility, because while the coffee was still brewing, the doorbell rang. Probably the kid collecting for the local paper, which I'd been warned still existed in this quaint town. I threw on an oversized Newcoven College hoodie over my tank and yoga pants and padded to the door, grabbing a wad of dollars from the mantle - - and my keys and phone, out of habit - - as I went.

When I stepped out onto the porch, though, I wasn't prepared for what I found. A Flowers Express truck was parked at the curb, and the delivery man's head peeked above a familiar size and shape of package. About eighteen inches high, two feet wide at the top, more narrow at the base. It was wrapped in thin, glossy white paper. _No. Not this. I know what this is._

I had avoided dwelling on thoughts of my birthday. If I had, I might have imagined this turn of events. But no, this was unimaginable. Shock propelled me forward.

I signed for the delivery, blindly, and shoved a tip into the delivery man's hand. He loped back to his truck, and in a fit of dull, unbelieving anger I tore open the paper surrounding my arrangement. In fact, I was numb, half-seeing. The last thing I remembered was the aroma of lilies overwhelming me, and the corners of the attached card pinching my palm as I clutched it. Then the blackness swept over me.

~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.

**EPOV**

I was going to Hell. No doubt about it. I had told myself it would be fine to just watch and admire from a distance. Keep an arm's length away. And now here I was jacking off in the shower like a teenager, unbelievably hard just thinking about how her breasts might feel if she was in here with me, soapy and slippery. Thinking about how her breasts _did_ feel, pressed against me in the kitchen stairway of her home. Even through five layers of fabric - - I'd counted, you see: my t-shirt, my flannel, her wooly sweater, her thermal, her bra - - I could feel them mold themselves to my chest. So soft.

Kissing her was like taking a drink from one of those stupid tall and narrow glasses you see at Oktoberfest, where you try to just take a sip and instead a flood of beer comes pouring out, overflowing down your chin and neck, making you look like an ass with no self-control. But in this case, the flood that came pouring out was welcome, it was all desire and pleasure and comfort like I hadn't felt in ages, or ever maybe, and it felt amazing and natural and I would do it over and over if I could. Great, now that made me think of licking beer off of her chin and neck.

God, her sweet neck and the way she reacted to me. She had practically growled with desire. I had fucking used my teeth on her, I had dragged the flat of my tongue like sandpaper across her pulse point. And she liked it. Oh, god. Here it was. I came hard into the stream of hot water pouring off of me into the drain. I stood shuddering in the shower for a moment, resting my forehead against the cool tile wall before toweling off.

Making out in the stairway for an hour wasn't really my plan. At least she had seemed as surprised as I was. Her wide eyes, looking at me in wonder. Her flush. That told me she wasn't used to kisses feeling like that, either.

My mind raced back to a simpler time. When was it? Oh, yesterday? Not even 12 hours ago?

There I was, barreling along Route 8 toward the supermarket. My brain kept reminding me that I was just on my way to help out a friend of a friend in a bad situation. On my way to help _Bella_. No big deal.

But even then I knew it wouldn't be _no big deal_. Her nervous laughter, babbling about Val Kilmer on the phone. Her wheezing breath - - I don't even think she was aware she was doing it. It was fucking cute.

The truth was that from the first time I'd seen her, accepting a coffee from Alice in the lobby of the lecture hall, all rumpled and frumpy, I hadn't been able to get her out of my head. All the other new faculty were primped and styled, nervous and eager to make positive first impressions, decked out in their attempt at "professor casual" fashions. She was just blithely plowing through the morning, dressed in grey skinny corduroys and an inside-out blue sweater. I could see the crease from her pillowcase on her cheek, like she had literally just rolled out of bed.

Later that morning when she had slipped into a seat next to mine, it was all I could do to restrain myself from reaching out a hand to, I don't know, smooth her hair. Something. She gave off a fresh and clean vibe, despite looking like she hadn't showered. She was doodling unicorns and trolls, or elves or whatever, on the margin of her sexual harassment handouts. That shit didn't normally amuse me, but this was a very expressive rendering of a unicorn. And I'm a tenured professor of art, I know about these things. She was spending a lot of time shading the haunches and flanks. It looked downright virile by the time she was done.

But I was fooling myself if I thought I was paying attention to her doodling. The whole time, my mind was replaying the look on her face when first sat down and glanced my way. Her glance turned into a penetrating stare in an instant, then she looked away in the next instant, but not before I could see that she seemed to recognize me. Not like you recognize and old friend or a new acquaintance, either. She looked at me like she knew my _soul_. No preconceived notions. No expectations. Just..._seeing_ me. It gave me a chill, frankly. I couldn't meet her eye again after that, but I couldn't forget it either. Her eyes were brown, dotted with copper flecks, warm and bright. What I wouldn't give to see them in the sunlight. Or candlelight. Any kind of light, really.

And then there was her appearance outside of Muddywaters the next morning, messing around with a wet kitten, then decorating Huck Finn with her dirty wristband before walking in. And her weird impromptu jam session with Sue, how eagerly she dove in to Sue's reminiscing about the early Chicago blues sound, the sound of her laughter...it felt wrong to eavesdrop, but every next thing she said was so unexpected. What was that feeling? I felt...amused. For the first time in years.

Dragging myself to Alice's Sunday dinner, where I knew she would be, was a way of desensitizing myself, I rationalized. _If I could just get used to her being around_. Bad move. Because she was smart, too. She was quirky and interested in the world, and she was into some nerdy history stuff. And god, my family loved her. She belonged in that house. I was drunk on fantasy that night...dishing out blueberry pie a la mode, watching the effortless joy of my family. Imagining myself back among the living on a regular basis, Bella by my side. Listening with undisguised interest, at the end of the night, up to my elbows in warm, sudsy dishwater, to Rose and Alice's excitement about their new friend.

"I hear all kinds of music blaring out of the house all the time, I just know she's going to be my concert buddy when Jasper is working evenings. I wonder if she likes karaoke. Well, she's going to learn to. And she mentioned wanting to go to the flea market. But we have to make sure she gets to the city once in a while, too," Alice had mused.

Rose was game. "Let's do it. She's from Phoenix, right? The desert? She's going to need some winter clothes, and soon. Not mall clothes, either. Columbus has better vintage and indie boutiques than Cleveland..." She trailed off and began poking at her iPhone, presumably looking at her calendar.

The mention of winter soured Alice's mood. She grumbled, "I just want someone to stay longer than a year for once. Winters in Clearwater always do a number on people."

My eyes flashed to Alice's just in time to see them suddenly brim with tears. She was behind me in an instant, circling my waist. I hadn't realized the dish water was growing cold. She didn't say a thing, but her eyes reflected in the window above the sink were so filled with apology and sadness, I almost couldn't look at her. She said it without thinking, I know that. I hated everyone having to watch their words around me. She pressed her forehead between my shoulder blades and squeezed me affectionately. I pulled the drain.

It was true that I missed spending time with Alice. We had been fast friends since the day Carlisle and Esme brought her home from the adoption agency, tiny for her age even then, a shock of shiny black hair bouncing above her head as she gurgled and held my gaze. She was two years old then. I was four. No one knew me as well as she did, and it pained me to think that no one ever would. I left the house that night vowing to keep my distance from Bella, knowing I wasn't equipped to be even a friend to her.

But then there was the call from Alice about Bella needing help, and this little adventure here. I was racing toward the supermarket like a man possessed. What was the final straw? The fucking picture of me on the bulletin board. What the hell? Okay, Alice and Jasper were in that picture too. Maybe Bella just wanted to be reminded of her new friends. But despite what I told myself, something twisted in my belly and I could feel a thrilling hope and sinking regret taking root, both at once.

I could see how I looked in that picture. I looked happy. I _was_ happy.

And I hadn't been happy in years. And she didn't know my reasons why. And those reasons...meant I needed to be careful.

And yet.

I wanted to kiss her the moment I pulled up to her at the grocery store parking lot - - irrationally, apropos of nothing, totally unprovoked. I saw it in my head like a movie scene, me reaching out and thumbing her cold cheeks to warm her, kissing the raindrops off of her forehead like I was her boyfriend or some shit. Anyone else would have looked like a drowned rat, standing there in the drizzle, but she was grinning and radiating energy and dammit, there was such a light in her eyes.

After dropping her off, I didn't want to leave her kitchen. I wasn't prepared for the rush of imprecise memories, being in that little house. It still had that smell of cinnamon and wet leaves and something unnameable that had no negative associations, a place and time in my life where the world seemed to be filled with nothing but luck and satisfying work and endless opportunity. It was a shock, honestly, to recall all of that.

It was a shock to feel so easy and free. It was a shock to feel a tiny spark of hope tear its way through me. What if it could be this easy?

And it was easy. The way her face hid no secrets. How open she was - - how easily she showed frustration, and embarrassment, and delight. Passion for her research. When she reached a subject she didn't want to broach, she simply changed the subject - - openly. She was even open about having secrets, suggesting that consent - - not mind-reading - - was what turned secrets into intimacy between two people. I liked that.

And that blush. I needed to know it was me causing that blush. I felt certain about it, like I hadn't felt certain in years. But I needed to know for sure. I needed to feel it. So...I kissed her. And, to my shock, it was really _me_ kissing her - - not bad-boy me, and certainly not best-behavior me. And she took it without judgment, and gave as good as she got, like she didn't have a fear in the world. And somewhere along the way, I was letting myself be kissed by her, drinking in all the affection and want like I deserved it. That was something I hadn't planned on. I was semi-hard again thinking about that kiss. Her hands on me. The moaning.

And now here I was, finger-combing my wet hair like an idiot, hoping to god Alice's hair product was what I thought it was, working up the nerve to waltz over and make conversation with Bella once again. This after having climbed onto her roof before dawn like a creepy stalker with coffee filters and a big old orchid.

The flower was too much. Or...not enough? It was all too obvious I had yanked it from Alice's hothouse, this being September and no wild orchids anywhere, anyhow. But I had planted the thing in the first place, that had to count for something, right? And anyways, it would have been creepier to just toss the filters on her desk through the windows: _Hey, just happened to be on your roof in the middle of the night, thought I'd pause to hand off those coffee filters you mentioned. No biggie. _

So, the flower made it look like a romantic gesture rather than a rude violation, which it was. I mean, it was both. Yeah. Definitely a conversation was in order...as soon as I knew she was up and about. I grabbed my phone and keys and listened for the front door to latch behind me.

As I cleared the bottom few stairs and made the turn toward Bella's house, I stopped in my tracks. Bella was not only awake, she was on the porch in a hoodie and some loose pants. Receiving a bouquet of flowers. A huge bouquet. Of. Flowers.

My head started spinning with rationales: had _I_ sent them to her, maybe during a post-masturbation blackout? Who else could they be from? She hadn't mentioned...well, she hadn't mentioned much of anything, come to think of it, not while my tongue was in her mouth, not last week at dinner or any other time, either.

But before I could sort out whether to flee back inside or have this conversation now, with a massive flower arrangement between us, my legs made the decision for me and I was rushing to her, because in a split second the color drained from her face, her eyes drifted closed in a sickening way, and she was collapsing into a dead faint on the porch.

**AN: Eek! Some explanations coming in the next chapter - - no more cliffhangers (for a while).**


	6. Chapter 5: The Scent of Lilies and Soap

**AN: This chapter was getting super long, and covering too much random stuff all at once, so I split it into two. That means this is a bit short, but expect another update in a few days! ~.~ Twilight is the property of Stephenie Meyer. So are the Twilight characters. Other artists and musicians are cited in the text. Everything else is my original work.**

**Playlist:**

**Ambulance - TV on the Radio**_  
Oh I will be your accident, if you will be my ambulance  
I will be your screech and crash, if you will be my crutch and cast  
I will be your one more time, if you will be my one last chance  
So fall for me_

**Chapter 5: The Scent of Lilies and Soap**

**EPOV**

_...before I could sort out whether to flee back inside or have this conversation now, with a massive flower arrangement between us, my legs made the decision for me and I was rushing to her, because in a split second the color drained from her face, her eyes drifted closed in a sickening way, and she was collapsing into a dead faint on the porch. _

I caught her before she tumbled down the stairs, but not before she hit her head on the post. Without stopping to think, I had my cell phone to my ear and I was talking to Carlisle.

"Dad."

"Edward! What a nice surpr..."

I cut him off. "It's about Bella. Um, Alice's neighbor. She's fainted. On the porch. What do I do?"

"Bella Swan?" Damn, this was a small town. How did he know her name? "Edward, keep calm. How's her breathing and her pulse?"

I had little choice but to put two fingers to her neck, feeling for her pulse.

"Normal. Normal, I guess. She's breathing, heart beating. But she won't come to. Shit, do I need to call an ambulance?" I did my best to ward off a creeping sense of dread. Not panic, oddly. What I felt was dread. Cold and heavy. A yoke of ice on my shoulders.

"Your mother is calling them now on the land line. Someone will be there soon. Son, until they get there, I need to you just monitor her pulse. And breathe. _You_ need to breathe."

I let out a feeble puff of air. I had been holding my breath. I kept reassuring myself she'd be fine. "Carlisle, I think she hit her head kind of hard." Just then her eyes fluttered open. "Oh! She's awake, Carlisle!" I swallowed a lump in my throat.

"She needs to come in anyways, Edward. Just as a precaution. Keep her calm if you can. Edward, listen to me...she's going to be just fine. I'll meet you there." I hated the serious tone in his voice. I hated that I needed his reassurance...all the same, I did need it.

I hung up.

"Bella, it's me, Edward. You're okay. You just fainted, that's all." Was that supposed to comfort her? I don't know. I was afraid to touch her, not sure what she would want. It was one thing last night in the stairwell when we were both equally alert, or equally half-asleep as the case may be. Quite another thing when she was passed out like a rag doll. I settled on grabbing her hand. Her skin was clammy.

The ambulance pulled up, lights and sirens apparently unnecessary on this lazy Sunday morning - - mercifully. The EMTs shot me a warning glance as I climbed in next to Bella, but I just shook them off. They insisted on keeping her lying down on a gurney. I knew all too well that those straps were necessary, much as I hated the idea right now. With a head injury, she could have a seizure at any minute, for instance.

I didn't want to let go of her hand. A creased, sweaty paper was pressed between us. It was the card from the bouquet, I realized.

"Take these." She whispered, letting go of the card while pushing her cell phone toward me with her other hand. "Please. And make sure they call Jacob Black."

What, now? Who? Who the fuck was Jacob Black? Was this how I was going to find out...whatever there was to find out? "Uh, okay." Reluctantly, I took the phone and the card from her. Meanwhile, two symmetrical tears slipped out of her eyes and rolled to either side of her face.

Why was she crying? I tried rubbing her head softly, feeling gingerly for blood or a bump, hoping to soothe her, but also hoping to find nothing. And finding nothing. No lump. No blood.

My own vision went a little blurry. I palmed the card she had given me and brought it closer to my line of sight. Looping script sprawled across the card. Why did all florists magically have the same handwriting? "Bella, Happy Birthday, this year and every year. I love you. Mom."

Oh. _Mom_. Not _Jacob_.

Huh.

Birthday. Huh. I would deal with that later. But for now, I scrolled through the names in her cell phone with one hand, never letting go of Bella. Well, there was a Jacob. And a Charlie. And a Billy. Anyhow...here: Mom and Phil.

I took a deep breath. I watched the pavement unfolding out of the back windows of the ambulance, concentrating on steadying my heartbeats to match the rhythm of the white dashes on the road as they flipped by.

I pressed send. The phone rang twice, and a man's voice answered, sounding groggy. Wherever he was - - Phoenix? - - it was early there. "Hey, baby girl."

He thought I was Bella calling. "Um, it's not - - er, is this Phil?" I felt Bella's eyes on me, opening and closing drowsily. I kept squeezing her hand, trying to keep her from slipping back into unconsciousness.

"Yes, who's this?" Confusion in his voice, understandably.

"Ah, this is Bella's, um, neighbor, Edward. Listen, she's okay, but she had a little episode just now. Of fainting. From some flowers? I need to ask you, does she have any allergies?"

I felt like an idiot. But god help me, I did not want to call this Jacob until absolutely necessary.

"Flowers?...Oh..." Phil seemed to trail off, dejected.

"Yes. From her mom."

"Jesus...Edward, is it?" His voice was suddenly full of regret. "Edward, the fact is...Bella's mom died ten months ago."

Oh.

Well, hell.

Flowers from beyond the grave. Yeah, that just about might make me faint too. I squeezed tighter, and she squeezed back.

"I guess Renee has had that set up to follow her address changes, going back years and years now. Damn internet! I should have double-checked that. What time is it there? Can I talk to her? God, I'm so sorry. And on her birthday..."

The ambulance was pulling into the emergency room bay now, and I explained that Bella was having a test at the hospital. "She's okay, but she hit her head on a post. We're just getting her checked out as a precaution." We? Who was this 'we'?

"The hospital, huh?" He groaned. "Listen, tell her I'm sorry and I'll talk to her as soon as she can take calls. In the meantime, the hospital should call Jacob Black. I believe they have all his info and whatnot." Well. This was something different. Why would the _hospital_ have it? I was fresh out of scenarios. It was all I could do to agree and hang up, following the EMTs into the emergency room.

I stood to the side and gave the E.R. personnel plenty of room to work. I felt a hand on my shoulder. Carlisle. He looked like he had rushed in, his white coat thrown on over his weekend uniform of cargo pants and a crumpled cotton button-down. His eyes searched mine and I looked away. This was all too much. When I looked one way, all I saw was Bella surrounded by nurses and residents. When I looked another way, I only saw my father and his compassion.

"Edward, she's going to be fine."

"It's her birthday!" I blurted out. "I thought she was allergic to the flowers, maybe, but...I guess it was just shock." I thrust the card at him. "Dead mother. Florist on auto-pilot. This delivery came, and that's when I saw her faint." I was angry now. Who could be that careless? But also, fuck! Her mother was gone. No one should go through that. Ever.

Carlisle hesitated only a second before asking me, "Edward, I don't mean to pry into what you might have been doing at Bella's at 7:30 in the morning, but...I need to know if she was drinking, or engaging in any strenuous activity? The equivalent of running up four flights of stairs, say?"

I stared at him. "_What?_ What are you even asking?" His eyes implored me. "_No,_" I hissed.

"She was up late, Dad. I was with her last night. We stayed up late, having some tea and talking. Mostly. No drinking. No drugs." Long pause. Had he forgotten what my life had been like for the past three years? Maybe he was asking: Had_ I_ forgotten? At long last, I reminded him. "What are you always saying to me? '_Remember who you are._' Of course I didn't have sex with her."

I more or less forced Bella's phone into Carlisle's hand. I spat out, "Will you call this Jacob Black everyone's talking about." I stayed only long enough to see him dial the phone, then walked through the automatic sliding E.R. doors. I started heading back toward the center of town on foot, calling Esme as I walked. It wasn't a frequent impulse. But today, I needed to hear my mother's voice.

~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.

**BPOV**

I was going to have to open my eyes sooner or later. Could this debacle that was my life get any more disastrous?

I let my eyes drift open just enough to give Dr. Cullen reassurance that I was coherent. My eyes took in my surroundings: a small private room with mauve curtains, the usual wall-mounted TV and various rolling carts lining the walls. The sharp smell of soap, nauseating me.

He shined a tiny light in each eye, just long enough to check my pupils. So this is Edward's father. Not how I had imagined meeting him. I let him see that I was focusing and lucid. I just didn't feel like talking.

"Bella, I'm Dr. Cullen. It's just me and you right now." I had seen him from afar at the farmer's market, and I'd seen his face in snapshots on Alice's walls, but now I could see the crinkles around his clear blue-grey eyes, the kindness and confidence there. I was shocked by how _young_ he looked. "Do you remember what happened?"

I rolled my eyes. I remembered more than I wanted to. Of all the times to flip out. Of all the people to do it in front of. Edward. I nodded my head.

"You may have had a mild concussion. I don't believe you're in any danger, but rest assured we did get in touch with Jacob and he is reachable at a moment's notice should we need him." I nodded again and turned my head away. He asked if I was feeling any pain. I said I had yet to drink any coffee, so I had a caffeine headache, but nothing more.

"Don't be alarmed if you feel foggy or have slight memory issues for a day or two. But do speak up right away or press the call button if you feel any sudden onset of pain or blurred vision. And I'm sorry I can't green-light any caffeine for you right now. If you do have a concussion, it could aggravate the situation. Will you be able to avoid driving for a few days?"

"I don't have a car."

"Right, then. Okay."

My mind wandered back to being stranded in the grocery store parking lot. This made two days in a row I needed rescuing, which was appalling. I was glad Edward wasn't here. Was I glad? I hadn't been surprised to see him stalk off through the emergency room doors - - not really. We'd hardly had one conversation. Not what I would call a solid foundation of a friendship. Something nagged at my awareness, but I was too exhausted to chase it. I did and didn't want him near. I guess I wanted him to _want _to be near me, but I also wanted a parallel reality, one where Edward's impression of me was of a confident, capable woman - - if only for a few more weeks, a few more days.

Dr. Cullen was still here. He continued, "I'm content with just observing you for a couple of hours as a precaution. Also...I want to make sure you know that even though Edward is my son, I can't, nor would I, disclose your medical record to him. Just promise to be open with me, okay? Now, I'll let you get some rest."

And so I rested.

~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.

I drifted awake some time later. The mauve curtains were open, and late-afternoon light was streaming in through the west-facing windows. It gave the space a peaceful quality. Metallic equipment gleamed dreamily. A patch of sun was on the blankets at my feet, warming them. It felt nice. I remembered something with a start, and flailed around frantically for a second, until a voice stilled me.

"Shhh, hey, what's wrong? I'll pull the shade." Edward. He moved around the bed to pull the mauve curtain closed partway while I gave myself a quick scan. Okay, no gaping hospital gown. Just my normal clothes. That was a good sign. But there was something else...what was I trying to remember? Oh!

"My coffee pot. I left it on - - it's gotta be burned to a crisp by now!" I stopped short, really seeing Edward now.

Christ, his hair. It was unusually pointy and voluminous today.

"No, it's okay. I shut it off. I...I went back to get you your toothbrush and a pair of shoes, and the truck, and I turned it off then. I didn't know what you would want." He pointed to a little pile on the nightstand next to my hospital bed - - he had brought not only my toothbrush and toothpaste, but hair product, facial sunscreen, and an eyeliner pencil. Pretty much everything that would have been on my bathroom sink.

He took his seat in a stiff chair against the far wall, and looked at me for a moment, quietly contemplating something. "You cracked your head pretty good on that post. How does your head feel?"

"My head feels fine. I twisted my neck a bit when I went down, I guess, but I'm fine." I said. "Thank you."

He nodded in the direction of the pile of toiletries he had brought over, and my shoes on the floor. "I borrowed your keys while you were sleeping. I, uh...I also brought your prescriptions, for the doctors. In case of drug interactions."

Edward winced and pointed to the drawer of the nightstand. I opened it and saw my birth control pills staring up at me. Right. Rolling around next to the pink plastic pill case was a powerful muscle relaxer I had on hand, which a count of the pills would show I had never had to use.

"I promise I won't make a habit of breaking and entering. Especially not twice every day."

That was probably a good rule to live by. I chuckled a little, thinking of how my coffee filters and orchid had appeared on my desk in the middle of the night. The thick fog was starting to lift from my mind, and the main thing that my increasingly alert brain wanted to focus on was the memory of Edward kissing me the night before. I blushed.

Edward's face softened. "So...you remember?"

And just like that, my pulse started racing just the tiniest bit. Yeah, I remembered. All of it.

Edward leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, but then shot back upright again, a frown on his face. A hand raked through his hair until it stood completely on end, shiny strands meandering this way and that. Sitting across the room, he was unmoving now, holding completely still, but coiled like a spring. Something fiery lurked deep in his green eyes, smoldering there like lava does in the hidden core of a volcano.

Suddenly, I recalled his words to Carlisle in the hallway. Telling his father we hadn't had sex. The way he put it, as if such a thing were unthinkable. The venom in his voice.

"Edward, what are you doing here?"

His eyes bored into mine, then lifted to the ceiling. He rested his head on the wall behind his chair. "I don't quite know. All I know is I'm here. I wanted to be here." Now he leaned forward again.

"Bella, I...I don't know what I think I'm doing."

Ah. Here it was. How would he choose to tell me it was all a big mistake, that he never meant to lead me on?

"I almost lost it when you fainted back there, Bella. That could have gone badly in so many ways."

Okay, this was something different altogether. I sat up and moved the bedcovers aside, and moved so I was sitting on top of the covers with my back to the wall. I didn't want to have this conversation lying down. "I don't know what you _almost _did, but what you _did_ do was get me to a doctor when I seemed like I was in trouble."

"Yes, and while you were passed out I pried into your life! I called your father or whoever, I found out who was sending you flowers. Invading your privacy. I rifled through your medicine cabinet. And I had no way of knowing what you wanted me to do, if you even wanted me holding your hand. And I found out about your mom...dying." His voice melted into a choked whisper. "Bella, I'm so sorry."

I didn't have the strength to do more than nod at him. I was barely holding it together as it was, and I still didn't feel ready to think, much less talk, about being without my mom on today of all days. I folded my legs up and sat cross-legged on the bed.

"The thing is, I...can't trust myself with people. In fact, it seems like all I can do is hurt people, and I don't want to hurt you." Suddenly he rolled his eyes. "God, I didn't think I would be having this conversation with you so soon."

"Edward, do you hear yourself? You say you're no good with people, but here you are telling me just what's on your mind and voicing your concerns. In my book, that's being good with people."

He looked at me now, his eyes uncertain. He looked down again.

"I guess I'm used to people expecting me to know without asking. Like I should be able to read their minds." There was something deeper veiled behind his shaking voice. Something three years deep, I ventured.

I sighed. I pulled my hair into a ponytail and moved to sit in the stiff chair next to Edward's.

"Edward, Alice told me." His face shot up, eyes filled with alarm. "She told me you've been keeping some distance. And I can see it myself. You like to be alone, I get it."

He folded and unfolded his arms, then tugged at his hair before gripping the armrests of his chair. "What else did she tell you?"

"Um. She thinks you're punishing yourself for something. I didn't ask her to tell me what. That's your business. Believe me, I'm the last person who wants to pry into anyone's life."

He nodded, and I understood that whatever was there, eating him up from the inside, would remain buried for a while.

When I looked back at his face, he was gazing out the window. The sun was setting. He wore a soft, pained look on his face. His thoughts were somewhere far away. Yet another 90-degree turn in the conversation was coming.

"I was four and a half when Esme and Carlisle adopted me. I barely remember my birth parents, Edward Senior and Elizabeth." His voice was quiet. "In fact...almost everything I remember about them is, simply, that they died. I remember my mother's beautiful hair, my father's scratchy mustache. The way they both smelled - - though I can't describe it, I remember it. Those things...feel important." He cleared his throat. "but mostly I remember that they died. Unexpectedly. Painfully."

He chanced a quick look at my face, questioning whether this was an okay subject for me to hear about. As for me, I was simply captivated by the change that had come over him. By the changes that always seemed to come over him. I couldn't tear my eyes away. I could see the lost little boy in him, and I could also see how uncomfortable he was - - and how brave - - letting that version of himself to the surface.

"They had the presence of mind to name Esme and Carlisle as my guardians, paving the way for my adoption. That was the greatest thing they could have given me, and I think about it often. Truly, Esme and Carlisle are my mom and dad. They've been there for me, solid as a rock, they've seen me through some dark days. I love them both so much. But that doesn't mean I don't feel like I'm...missing a limb or something, every day. I would give anything to _know_ them. For them to know me. Ugh, this was stupid of me. I can't even imagine what you're going through, Bella."

"Thank you, Edward. It's not stupid. You know...it's still all so recent. And sort of complicated." I appreciated that he was making the effort, and I trusted he would understand I wasn't ready to talk about all of it, not right now. I could barely handle the most raw part of it - - the flowers from this morning. "Those lilies, Edward...I think I fainted more from the sense memory of that sickening scent than from the shock. That smell was in all of my clothes from being in the hospital with her. Lilies and soap, that antiseptic soap."

Announcements crackled over the PA system. When I recalled where I was and how I had gotten here, a surge of indignation bubbled up inside of me - - how unfair it felt! This morning should have unfolded so differently. But then, just as quickly, I set it aside. Maybe I didn't have a choice about whether and when I would talk to Edward, or anyone, about Renee. But I did have a choice about how I would go about it.

I turned toward Edward. I needed to connect with him about something else, anything else. "You were on your way over to my house this morning. When you saw me black out." It wasn't a question, but it sort of was.

"I wanted to see you."

And that was when I heard the bewildered uncertainty in his voice. And I realized how it must have looked to him. The flowers. Jake. He truly had no idea what he had walked into, and I decided that leaving him to work out explanations in his head was worse than him knowing the truth.

"I wanted to see you, too." I wasn't sure where to start. "Listen, Edward, I want to talk to you about this, but can we do it when I'm not in here? I really just hate everything about this place."

"Of course we can." Edward gave me a sad smile. "Listen, I know we both have some stuff to sort out. Let's back up a few steps, okay? Let me take you out. Like on a...date." The word tumbled out of his mouth like he wasn't sure it belonged there.

I smiled and stood up. I didn't feel faint, and I didn't feel dizzy, despite all the blood simultaneously rushing to my head and swelling my heart. "I'd like that." I didn't know what it meant, and I don't think he did either, but I liked it.

"There's something else I need to tell you." He tensed his lips into a grimace. "Alice. Apparently, she's known all along that today was your birthday, and she's planned something."

I stared at him, at a loss for words.

"Just a Sunday dinner. But with cake instead of pie. Alice and us, plus Jasper, Emmett, Rose. Will you come?"

Considering that the last place I wanted to be was at home alone, I agreed. I gathered my belongings from the nightstand and slipped my feet into my sneakers. "Come on. Let's go get me discharged."

~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~

**AN: Thanks to everyone for reading, reviewing, and even (!) recommending the story! Stick with me, please oh please...I have such plans for this Edward.**


	7. Chapter 6: Breath, Muscle, Strength

**Twilight is the property of Stephenie Meyer. So are the Twilight characters. Other artists and musicians are cited in the text. Everything else is my original work.**

**Playlist:**

**Can't Go Back Now - The Weepies**

Yesterday, when you were young

Everything you needed done was done for you.

Now you do it on your own

But you find you're all alone, what can you do?

**Chapter 6: Breath, Muscle, Strength**

The discharge paperwork took just a few minutes. Dr. Cullen owned up to being overly cautious, but gave me a serious look that told me he would be looking out for me. He reminded me about not driving, cleared me to drink coffee again (in small amounts), had me sign some forms, and shook my hand.

Edward stopped me as I turned to go, stilling me with a single pointer finger on my forearm. "Bella, this might sound weird...I know you've met 'Dr. Cullen,' but...I'd like to introduce you to my _father_, Carlisle. Dad, this is Bella."

Carlisle tried to cover up his shock at this gesture coming from Edward, his expression morphing swiftly into a pleased, welcoming smile as he reached out a hand. A hand I had just finished shaking. Even so, it felt different this time. Warmer. "Bella. It truly is a pleasure. I look forward to seeing more of you under different circumstances."

He nodded at Edward and clapped him on the shoulder, a significant look passing between them. I felt my familiar twinge of jealous fascination with close family bonds, marveling at how much feeling there could be in a simple glance, eye contact held for a mere fraction of a second.

And then we were off, heading back to the red truck that would take me home for the second time in two days. As Edward led me through the small parking lot, I saw that I had a few voicemails and texts on my phone. I listened to Charlie's birthday message - - exuberant (for him). Then a concerned text from Jacob, an apologetic one from Phil.

While Edward steered us out of the parking lot, turning on the headlights against the deepening dusk, and began driving toward the center of town, I took a deep breath and dialed Jacob.

"Jake. It's me." Edward stiffened ever so slightly beside me. Jacob, on the other end of the phone, had a mix of questions and birthday wishes for me, and I tried to keep the discussion efficient. "Yes, I'm fine, totally fine. Mmm-hmm. Thank you. I know. They just discharged me. Actually, dinner. Yeah. Some friends are cooking. Okay. Right. You too."

The drive from the hospital to Alice's was short. As we pulled into Alice's driveway, I could make out, in the dim light, the silhouette of the bouquet from this morning still on my porch. I turned away from it, facing toward Edward as I waited for him to turn off the ignition. I could see Jasper and Rose through the picture window, Rose reading while Jasper strummed his guitar. Emmett was in the kitchen, his shoulders and arms moving vigorously, working at something. I realized he was kneading bread dough. Alice saw us pull up. She waved and winked, clearly eager for us to come inside and join the group.

But first, I had some explaining to do.

"Edward, I know you're wondering." He caught my eye in the reflection in the windshield.

Where to start? "Phil, who you talked to this morning, is my stepfather. He married Renee, my mom, when I was 17. By that time, I was on my way to college at U of C, so I never really got to know Phil - - not until these past two years, anyways."

His hands gripped the steering wheel. I could see how hard he was trying to hold onto the reticence and distance he had cultivated, and yet, something else fought to escape from behind the shields of his eyes.

"Bella, you don't need to tell me anything you don't want to." I wasn't sure if he was trying to protect me, or himself.

I carried on, determined. "Jacob...Jacob Black is someone I was close to back in Phoenix. He's practically a part of my family. More like a brother than anything, at this point." Edward's breathing was steady and even. He twisted his hands on the steering wheel and turned to look at me directly, eyebrows raised slightly. Hmm. He wanted an explanation, all right.

This was harder than I thought. I took a deep breath, and plowed ahead, somewhat robotically. "The reason I needed him called is that I've given him what's called Durable Power of Attorney in connection with my health care. So, um, specifically, I have certain advance directives in place that he would be responsible for seeing carried out in the event that I become incapable of communicating. The very unlikely event."

_Just spit it out, Bella. _I reminded myself I had nothing to hide, nothing that wasn't a true part of me. I swallowed hard.

"And the reason I asked him to do that is because when Renee died...even though we had discussed ahead of time what she wanted...she didn't have such a person designated. And she didn't have a living will. And...she died horribly, Edward."

He reached his hand toward me, then retracted it awkwardly. I reminded myself that, as much as I felt drawn to him, we barely knew each other.

"She...well, she was sick, and she had a major surgery, and she wasn't strong enough to recover. We knew she was dying for six weeks, and there was nothing anyone could do. Little things caused a domino effect of consequences, and she never regained consciousness. All the while, her get-well bouquets of lilies were lilting and withering. Then people would send more, and those would wither. I don't know how many times." I toyed with the end of my ponytail that had curled around the front of my shoulder, tugging it and twisting it in my fingers.

"All the doctors could do was monitor her, basically waiting until her organs failed one by one. And yet they resuscitated her three times, knowing it would only prolong the process, because there was no legal provision in place." I took a deep breath, shuddering. We had been so blindly optimistic. "I don't ever want that for myself, and I didn't think it was fair to put Charlie - - that's my dad - - in such a position, so I asked Jacob."

I recalled the day I had signed the paperwork with Jake. That day had been hard. Jake understood my worry better than anyone could, because of what we had been through. And I knew that he would never let me down. I had no qualms about a Do Not Resuscitate order, after what we had seen happen to Renee, and I trusted Jake's judgment. What was hard was the cold formality of our agreement...while I trusted Jake enough to play such a role in my life, that was all I felt for him. He would never be more than a friend to me, and it had been hard to admit. My feelings for him had always been exactly the same, despite phases of trying to force myself to feel otherwise.

But here and now, I realized I was sitting beside someone who made me feel utterly different from moment to moment. I never knew what was coming next from him, and I never knew how I would respond. I liked it. Oh, how I liked it. I met Edward's eye. His gaze hadn't left my face. He looked slightly stricken. Did he see me as a monster? Did he see a person who wished her own mother's death had come sooner? I needed him to understand the whole story. Tears sprang out of my eyes, which did not surprise me. I flicked them away.

"There's more, Edward. My mom's surgery...she...it was a lung transplant, actually, because she had advanced Emphysema and...her lungs would have failed within months, without a transplant." Ugh. This was a story I had told countless times, to lawyers, grad school colleagues, distant relatives at the funeral. Why was it so difficult now? I stiffened my arms against my sides, pressing my hands down and feeling the cool leather of the truck's bench seat.

Edward's torso was turned toward me, his right hand pressed flat on the seat in the space between us. He inched his pinky finger to press against mine, finally covering my whole hand with his.

"Edward, did you know that it's becoming more common now for lungs to be transplanted from living donors? A healthy set of lungs has a total of five lobes, okay? Three on the right and two on the left." I sounded like a science textbook, but that was the only way I was capable of getting through this particular speech. "So, it takes two separate living donors, and each donor gives one of their five lobes, and the two are combined to make up the equivalent of one functioning lung in the recipient."

Edward's brow was furrowed in concentration.

"Well. Jacob was one of my mom's donors, and...I was the other one." I let out my breath in a whoosh.

I didn't say - - I didn't think I would ever be able to say - - one last thing that lay hidden beneath all my secrets: that I was responsible for my mother dying. Because I had taken too long or not enough time to decide, because I had chosen the date for the surgery, because I had been in recovery instead of by her side when she needed me most. She might have lived as much as a year without the surgery, and she had left it up to me. I had said _yes, I'm a match, let's do this while you still have strength_. I had made a bet on her surviving, and lost. And I would never forgive myself.

I looked over now at Edward's beautiful face, searching my mind and conscience for some kind of loophole that would allow me to deserve him. I watched him cautiously. I steeled myself, looking for an expression or sign that he saw me as a medical curiosity or as a sad girl who tried desperately, and failed shamefully, to reverse the fate of her own mother.

He was totally still next to me for a long while. When he spoke, I barely heard him. "Which one?"

"What? Which what?"

"Which lung? Right or left?"

Oh. "Um, left. My left lung."

And then he did a strange thing. He lifted his hand from where it was clutching mine on the seat next to me, reaching up to move my ponytail out of the way, flipping it to the back of my shoulder. He tugged gently on the zipper to my hoodie, dragging it down a few inches, moving slowly as if he thought I might stop him at any moment. His eyes never left the zipper pull. I could hear his shallow, controlled breaths. And finally, he pressed his palm, flat and warm, to the skin of my chest above the scoop of my tank top. I knew that he would feel muscle and strength there, between the hardness of my clavicle and the softness of my breast. I knew that he would feel my heart beating, and the gentle rise and fall of my breathing.

He closed his eyes. We sat like that for a long time. We could have been a renaissance painting. Well, he could have been, anyways. He opened his eyes and cleared his throat. His cheeks were flushed pink. "Are you...you're fine, right? You're healthy now?"

"Yes. I mean, other than doctors like your father going overboard about heart-lung issues when I hit my head." I smiled wryly. A part of my spirit was dead and destroyed, but my physical health had actually never been better.

Edward wasn't smiling. He took his hand away and zipped me up again. If this was his main concern, I could set his mind at ease. "That was why Carlisle insisted on me coming in, you know. He was worried that a cardiovascular problem was the cause of me fainting in the first place. I had sent my medical records on to the hospital before even moving here, on the off chance of such a thing happening."

Edward nodded, looking down.

"The probability, though, is practically zero. What happened this morning was a fluke. It's been almost a full year since the surgery. My overall lung capacity is reduced slightly, and always will be. I probably won't ever run a marathon. But taking good care of my health, staying active, has become my default since the surgery, so it's likely I'll have a healthier life overall, in the end."

He moved his hand to my neck now, gently stroking it as if he could physically calm the anguished pounding of my pulse through my throbbing vein. I exhaled, relieved to have this, at least, out in the open.

I added, "If you want to ask Carlisle any questions about it, it's okay with me. I'll tell him I want you to know."

He spoke, finally. "Bella, thank you. I'm sorry you've had to go through this, but thank you for telling me."

And with that, he reached across me and opened the passenger side door. "Alice can wait five more minutes, if you want to run in and change or anything. While you do that, I'm going to put those flowers somewhere you'll never have to see them again."

~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~

When we walked into the house next door a few moments later, I was greeted by the scents of of garlic and rosemary, a smoky aroma from fireplace, and warm hugs from Alice and Jasper. Rose shouted a hello from the living room. Emmett patted my shoulders tentatively, as if afraid of his own strength.

"It's okay, I'm not made of glass," I laughed. Honestly, I wanted to move on and forget the whole embarrassing episode from this morning.

Jasper pursed his lips at me. "And yet, something's keeping you from fully relaxing, am I right?"

This could describe any number of things. I frowned. He shrugged. He lowered his voice and approached me, not wanting to draw even more attention to me in front of everyone else. "You twisted your neck when you fell, didn't you? You're all tense, and you're carrying your shoulder stiffly."

"I can't believe you can see that." It was true, my neck had been feeling strained after my fall.

"Come on, Bella. It's my job to notice these things." Jasper had a way of putting me at ease, a skill carried over from years as a physical therapist, I guess.

I awkwardly eased out of the light jacket I had just put on, wincing as I squirmed out of it. A tweaked neck was no fun. Edward just shook his head and moved to toss our jackets on coat hooks. He busied himself with salad prep, asking Emmett to fill him in on the meal plan. Rose hopped up to join them in the kitchen.

I turned to my hostess. "Alice, how did you know it was my birthday?"

"I have my ways. Don't underestimate me." The gleam in her eye brightened my mood. Alice was really something.

"This is perfect, you guys. Seriously." Everything smelled so good, and I felt an overwhelming surge of gratitude at not being left alone on my birthday. No, more than that - - I was among friends. This really felt special, and I hadn't been expecting it. My eyes welled up with tears and I choked out a final, wobbly "Thanks."

The moment was suddenly charged with emotion, and Jasper did his best to defuse it. "So, I know we promised to put you to work for Sunday dinner, but you're the guest of honor, so...no chores for you."

I protested, but Jasper just pointed to the couch. "Sit."

Then he pointed to the floor and said, "On second thought, lie down."

Edward, chopping tomatoes, slowed his movements ever so slightly. Out of the corner of his eye he watched as Jasper proposed working out the kink in my back with a brief massage.

I eyed the area rug.

Within seconds, I was lying on my stomach, head turned to one side, instructed by Jasper. "You're comfortable? I promise this is suitable for mixed company!"

"Sure. Jasper, I trust you. Just warn me if you're going to take off my clothes," I joked. I heard a loud clatter behind me, but my head was pointed the other way and I couldn't see anything.

Then Edward's voice, grumbling something to Rose about a sharp knife and switching tasks.

As Jasper began kneading my upper back, Alice dangled her head down from the couch and teased me, "If you see any crumbs or lint in the carpet, don't tell me. I'm very proud of my grooming."

"It's perfectly smooth and clean, Alice. But I do see a few dust bunnies and balls of yarn under the couch."

This got Rosalie's attention. "Oh, the blue cashmere? Finally, Edward's blue...I mean, he's been looking for those."

I heard a louder sloshing noise from the kitchen, and some cursing.

Edward answered through clenched teeth. "I gave up on those a long time ago, Rose."

"Edward, you knit?" I was surprised. I was still staring at the dust-covered balls of yarn under the couch, unable to move my head to see any faces while I talked.

"Only when I have to." This got a laugh.

Rose explained, "Edward's the one who taught me to knit, Bella. He uses it in his sculpture sometimes. So very 'modern man' of him, don't you think?"

This reminded me of something I had read. "Eh, maybe not. Some of the earliest known examples of knitting are fishing nets. And men didn't have women on the boats with them to repair nets, so they obviously did it themselves. It's not all that modern. Impressive, sure, but not modern."

"And that is why we love you, Bella." Emmett piped up. "You're not afraid to bring us down to earth. Isn't that right, Edward?" I heard something, an uncertain squeak, from Edward.

Now Jasper paused and began concentrating on an area between my shoulder blade and the base of my cervical spine. "Bingo."

I could feel the little knot melting away under the heel of his hand and possibly his elbow. "Your back is strong, Bella. You're just locked up, right...here. This muscle."

Alice joked about how many of Jasper's clients confused the word "cervical" for "cervix." "Half of them threaten to report him, the other half can't wait for him to massage their cervix." She started giggling while Jasper frowned at her, ever the professional.

More clattering and indistinct muttering noises came from the kitchen, and then I heard Rosalie scolding Edward about getting risotto all over the wall. She scolded him, "When did you get so clumsy, butterfingers! Just stir it. Gently!"

I felt so relaxed and calm, bathed by the warmth from the fire and surrounded by the delicious cooking smells and playful banter of my friends. The next thing I knew, I was blinking and peeling my face off of the deep pile carpet, drooling slightly. I had completely drifted off to sleep. Classy.

I inched up onto my forearms and twisted around, still blinking. "What the...you guys, why didn't you wake me up?" Everyone was quietly playing cards at the kitchen table, amidst the sparkling clean places settings. Except Edward, who was rummaging in the pantry.

Alice shushed me. "Dinner's not quite ready yet, and you looked so peaceful sleeping there. Besides, you were only out for 15 minutes. If anything, Jasper wanted to you in a bed, he kept going on about 'stiffness.' Then we wouldn't have seen you for hours." She snorted.

A weak yelp came from the pantry as baskets and cookie sheets tumbled down around Edward. His muffled voice grumbled, "Got it! Never mind! I'm okay."

Alice sent a withering look toward the pantry, rolling her eyes, then looked back at me. "The beds in this house are super comfy, Bella. Jasper has very specific ideas about mattress quality. You would be out like a light."

Rose was looking at me, considering something. "Actually, Bella, the bed in your house is probably the same, since we furnished that place, too, when Edward moved in."

It _was_ an extremely comfortable bed. But that meant..."Are you telling me - -" I was interrupted by Edward clearing his throat loudly.

"Dinner's ready. Risotto. It won't keep for long, let's eat."

Within a few moments, the cards were put away and we were all settled in with our servings of food. Quiet side conversations were taking place around the table as we all tucked in to the toasty rosemary focaccia, crispy green salad, and mushroom risotto. Edward turned to me and did a double take.

"Oh, Bella." He smiled sweetly, a look of pure delight sweeping over his features, and I my heart was ready to burst at the beauty of it. This was the smile. This was what I had been waiting for. I'm sure I mirrored his easy, bright smile. He reached a hand up and stroked my temple and the side of my face with his thumb, the tips of his fingers, sending a jolt of sensation through my entire body. "The pattern from the rug...oh, you look adorable."

And then, at the exact same instant, he and I froze. I realized two things simultaneously. I'm pretty sure he did, too. First, he had been a heartbeat away from kissing me. Second, the entire table full of people was gaping at us.

He took his hand away awkwardly, and I did the only thing I could think to do, which was clutch my cheek and feign embarrassment at being seen with carpet marks all over my face. I mean, I really was embarrassed, a little bit, but I did my best to seem as if that was the only reason for the crimson flush rising from my neck to my cheeks, the very tips of my ears. "Nice, everyone, you could have told me!" I continued swatting at my own skin and sputtering while Edward tried to distract people with offers of salad dressing and second helpings of bread.

For the remainder of dinner, I could barely meet his eye. Just barely.

~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~

Three hours later, after dinner and dishes and cake and some songs from Jasper on his guitar, I was standing in the driveway, saying my goodbyes to the gang. Alice ran back inside, claiming she had a little something for me. When she reappeared, she was grinning from ear to ear.

"Happy birthday, Bella." She dangled a key ring in front of me. It was a small plastic replica of the sign from Sue's cafe that I loved, with the cartoon Huck Finn on a raft of toast.

"Oh, thank you! I can't believe you noticed my sad little plain key ring." I was oddly touched by the gift.

Alice laughed and Emmett burst from behind her to grab the key ring and flip it so I saw a key dangling from it. A squarish silver key. He gestured to his left, and that's when I saw Jasper standing near the open driver's side door of the red truck.

I was slow to grasp what was happening.

"You got me...a truck?"

More giggling from Alice. "No, we really did get you this key ring! The truck is from Charlie."

"What? Oh my god, you guys...wait, what do you mean? How is it from Charlie?" I had to catch my breath. My hands raked through my own hair.

"He tracked me down through the Newcoven website after you mentioned my name on the phone a few times. He found the truck online. He said to tell you it's not negotiable, and he hopes you'll use it to come see him in Chicago. Rose came along to check under the hood - - she says it's in great condition, just needed new tires. And Edward picked it up from the tire shop yesterday."

I spun around to face Edward. "You knew about this?"

"No!" He laughed, looking as surprised as I was. "I was just told Alice had it on loan from a friend. I guess that friend was you."

I couldn't wipe the smile off my face. I looked at the truck with new eyes. The truck itself was great, and it was a relief to have a reliable mode of transportation now that the weather was changing. But also, somehow, it felt nice to me that the moments I had passed with Edward earlier tonight didn't take place in a stranger's borrowed truck.

I caught his eye briefly, wondering if he was thinking that, too. I couldn't tell, but it was nice to see him smile.

And then, as everyone trickled back inside, Edward lingered. Someone in the house drew the picture window curtains closed, a signal that whatever they thought they had picked up on between Edward and me, they were still leaving us as much privacy as possible.

It was only a few steps to my door. Edward walked me those few steps.

I hesitated before letting myself inside. "Since it's my birthday...I was thinking...can I ask you something?"

He looked at me, waiting. He leaned against the door of my truck, arms folded, legs crossed at the ankles.

"Actually, can I ask you...three things?"

Now he was curious. "Okay. Three things. On one condition."

"Mmm-hmm. What's that?"

"I don't want to upset you on your birthday. I have some baggage, I think it's obvious. So if you get into any dangerous territory, I get to defer. I'm not going to say anything to ruin your birthday."

"But you'll tell me another day."

"I will."

"You promise to answer me honestly?"

"I promise."

"Okay. So. The big oak tree...the one down in front of Masen Hall? What's the significance? I've seen you climbing it."

He wasn't expecting that. And this was a genuine smile; honestly, I would have stopped there and taken that smile as my birthday gift. The man could light up a room, and we weren't even in a room.

"Wow. Um, it's better if I show you. I'd tell you now, if you insist, but I wish you would let me show you. It's really very lovely."

I would accept that. At the very least, it was a promise of a new adventure. "Okay, you can show me."

He grinned. "Next?"

"Next. The picture of you...the one in my office." I watched his face grow serious. His eyes flew to my face and he grew as still as a statue as I continued talking. "I found it in a cabinet Alice gave to me."

He nodded his head, never breaking my gaze. I continued, "Who...who took that picture?"

And here it was. Here was that buried heartache. There wasn't a doubt in my mind. A flurry of moods crossed his face in an instant: surprise, melancholy, a flicker of dark regret. After a long moment, he spoke. "Tanya." He breathed the name, then twisted his lips into the saddest smile I've ever seen. I suddenly felt like I was intruding on a private moment. But his voice invited me in. He wanted me to share this. "Her name was Tanya." As much as his voice invited me, his haunted eyes told me the rest would have to wait.

I opened and closed my mouth. Maybe more than once.

"You have a third question, Bella." His arms were folded across his chest, but he nudged me with his elbow. "Ask."

"Yeah." I took a slow breath in, and looked up at him. It was now or never. I couched my question in a feeble, self-deprecating joke. "Maybe it's just a side effect of my so-called concussion, but last night...when you kissed me...I can't stop thinking about it, Edward. Am I...are you...I mean...am I alone in this?"

He released a loud sigh, dropping his chin to his chest. He had been holding his breath. He took his time choosing his words. I could make a career out of waiting for this man to talk. Finally, he raised his head and locked into my gaze. "All day, Bella." His voice was barely audible, I had to watch his lips move to even make out the words. "All night. Last night. Tonight. No, you're not alone." He looked to the stars, as if he could connect the dots up there and find a route toward what he wanted to say.

"I'm thinking about it right now, you know. Thinking about doing it again. Of course I am." He moved closer to me, putting a hands on my shoulder. Not to draw me toward him, but to steady and brace himself. "I think about being with you in...every way."

Now he raised his eyes to look me square in the face, with a soft smile. "But you agreed to let me take you on a date, remember?"

I must have looked confused, because he continued, "I'm fighting to keep a lid on every impulse in my body right now, Bella. Because I can't just dive in. I can't do it that way." His other hand tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. "Especially after today."

My face fell, and he saw it.

"Bella, look at me. I get it. Your world - - your _real_ world - - it's not a free and easy fantasy land. Neither is mine. Believe me, I love a good fantasy. But reality is...what I want. What I need." He was shaking, his voice unsteady. "There are no shortcuts. That's what I mean when I say I can't just dive in."

He was right. _Reality. _For a moment, I allowed myself to envision such a thing - - knowing him. Knowing _him_. For a moment, an ache sliced straight through my heart, but like a warm ray of light, like the opposite of the scalpels and sutures that had pierced me one short year ago.

I blinked back a hot tear, determined. "I just don't want you to treat me like some fragile creature."

"Yes." A smile broke through his serious expression. "I can see that."

He ran his hands lightly down my upper arms to catch my elbows. "Let me do this right. Okay?"

I nodded my head. "Okay." My voice came out in a squeak.

"Good night, Bella."

This time, when he kissed me - - softly, on the cheek, one time - - I felt all the tension and restraint that was absent the night before. I felt the deliberation behind everything he didn't do. And I felt a magnetic pull, and his resistance to it, that made me more aware than ever of his physical strength at the moment when his lips, feather-light, brushed my face.

I would take it. Today was my birthday, after all. _Reality._ I would hold him to it.

~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~

**AN: Okay? I know, right? Are you still with me here? Please let me know how this is all working for you! Also: the living lung donor thing is real...you can google it.**


	8. Chapter 7: Honey

**Edited 11/6 to correct some annoying errors, sorry if you received an update fake-out. Twilight is the property of Stephenie Meyer. So are the Twilight characters. Other artists and musicians are cited in the text. Everything else is my original work.**

**Playlist:**

**Bloodbuzz Ohio - The National  
Just Like Honey - The Jesus and Mary Chain **

**Chapter 7: Honey**

I sat across the booth from Angela, blowing on the cup of coffee Sue had just poured for me. Angela stirred a cup of mint tea. Between us was a flat file, measuring ten by twelve inches and about four inches thick, containing some of the deepest, darkest secrets ever to pass through Newcoven College.

"These are the originals," She said. "If handwriting analysis is going to work, using the originals is your best bet."

This was one of the college's strangest and, in my eyes, most interesting archives. NCDGD 001-1862. It was known colloquially as "Dear Government Documents," and it was growing all the time.

The government document themselves were of little interest. The Newcoven Library was a repository for these multi-volume publications, which were housed in a little-traveled wing of the building, shelf after shelf of leather-bound books. Occasionally, researchers had legitimate uses for looking up congressional proceedings or decades-old census maps, but for the most part, these volumes had become most useful for another reason: as a means of furtively sending anonymous pleas for advice to librarians, and receiving the anonymous responses in reply.

A person - - usually a female student, but not always - - would insert an anonymous question between the pages of a volume, noting the call number for herself, then dump the book, unseen, on a librarian's cart as if ready to be re-shelved. A librarian, who would have been prepped in advance by her colleagues about this secret but not-so-secret practice, would come across the book, discover the question tucked inside, do a bit of research, and then re-shelve the book in its proper place, replacing the question slip with answers and resources. After a few days, the question's author would locate the book by its call number and retrieve her answers.

Mostly, the questions had to do with topics that were too embarrassing or sensitive to ask a librarian directly, even knowing that librarians tended to guard their patrons' privacy. In a small town, the fear of gossip and exposure was strong. The questions, along with copies of the responses, were archived, spending a few years in a holding pattern until it was reasonable to believe the student had moved on. They covered everything from infidelity to child custody battles, drug addiction, and birth control issues. Some of them were simple tales of loneliness and heartbreak, an effort to reach out to a nonjudgmental listener, someone, anyone.

The next book I wanted to write had to do with medical and health-related privacy issues, and that was the subject of the notes and letters in the flat file in front of me. Angela had organized them in chronological order, inserting colored divider pages with tabs indicating milestone historical events: the mid-century polio outbreak, the invention of the pill, Roe v. Wade, the spread of HIV. I wasn't quite sure where my research would lead, but a first step was to conduct handwriting analysis to see if any writers sent multiple inquiries that would add up to a narrative. In my heart, I wanted to know if the librarians' advice helped.

Reading the letters, I felt strangely moved. I grew melancholy, thinking about the times in my life when I would have loved to reach out in just such a way.

Throughout my ordeal with Renee, I hadn't had a confidant to share my worries and fears with. I had Charlie, who was solid and trustworthy, but not much of a talker, especially about the woman who had walked out on him. I felt reluctant to go to Phil, too, for similar reasons. I didn't want to trouble him. Jake was a great listener, but he was directly involved in the situation. I couldn't very well open up to him about my hesitation when he was already willing to make such a sacrifice for my mother.

So, instead, I had retreated into my head. The historian in me wanted to isolate each and every factor and appraise it. And when I did that, everything lined up. What it came down to, finally, was that I didn't have a rationale for not going through with it. I poured all my fears and anguish into my journals, and put on a brave face for Jake, Phil, Charlie. I called them together and announced I wanted to set the date for the surgery: October 4, 2008. Almost a full year ago, I had said goodbye to Renee for what I didn't know would be the last time.

A poke to my elbow distracted me from my recollection. Angela was urging a paper napkin into my hand, and I realized tears were dripping from my nose.

"Ugh, thank you." I blew my nose. "Some of these stories. Brutal."

She nodded, looking away to give me a moment to collect myself.

Something occurred to me. "Angela, have you ever been on the receiving end of one of these?"

"Sure, Bella. I've been on staff for five years - - two as an undergrad, then they kept me on while I got my masters at Kent State. Once I was no longer an undergrad, I was put in the queue to respond to 'DGD' requests. There's a whole protocol. They...we...regard it as a privilege.

"Anyhow, there are a few I'll never forget. Some of these, for sure." She gestured to the flat file. "And last year, there were several students whose families were about to lose their homes to foreclosure or whose parents were out of work, and who felt they had to drop out of school for financial reasons. The ways they described their lifelong dreams, how hard they had worked to get to this point, but also the shame and uncertainty they felt...it was very moving. It's really changed the way I relate to my own friends and family members going through hard times, because the right thing to do can be impossible to see. Not to mention how stress clouds your judgment."

This was true. When I was growing up, Charlie used to talk about how stress pulled blood flow away from the brain, effectively blinding you to rational thinking and reasoning. I would always give him a hard time about going to the shooting range for target practice - - if the security guard job was as safe as he said, why did he need target practice? And he would just calmly explain that in a moment of high stress, instinct and muscle memory takes over, so he needed to keep his skills sharp even though he would probably never use them. That was an extreme example, but even the stress of being worried about something in day to day life could rob you of normal mental sharpness.

"So, what happened to those students?"

"Well, those had happy endings. It's such a rush when you can actually give people good news. There's an emergency fund for just that type of thing. Even middle-class families are eligible, if their financial situation changes."

"Newcoven has a fund?"

"Newcoven has all the normal financial aid sources, but no, this is an independent foundation. Newcoven students can apply, but so can students of any college in the region. It's called the Brandon Masen Fund."

I nodded. I had seen the Masen name around, including on the building where my office was. Some charitable big wig in the region. Maybe Brandon was his first name?

Angela was such a welcome source of information, it really amazed me how lucky I was. I had a new thought. "Angela, if I end up publishing something from this research, would you want to be a co-author with me? It would mean you'd be a bit more involved, but then you'd also get credit. And I wouldn't feel so guilty imposing on you."

She blinked, caught off guard. "But we aren't even in the same department. And I'm not on the faculty, I'm not trying to prove myself for tenure."

I shrugged. "All the more reason. Everything is going more collaborative now, so it helps me to demonstrate I can reach across disciplinary lines."

She bit her lip and nodded quickly, smiling. "Thanks, Bella."

While Angela and I talked, I caught a familiar glint out of the corner of my eye. Specifically, a glint of bronze hair. Edward was here, dropping something off for Sue. The box he carried was the same type of thing I had seen him deliver that first week on campus. Sue unpacked the box this time, lifting out glass jars labeled "ULEY HONEY." I was looking forward to meeting with Emily Uley, the honey farmer who was Sue's niece, about her quilt and textile collection. In fact, I had plans to go there tomorrow.

I overheard Sue asking Edward to follow her to the back of the restaurant and help move some heavy things, and as he passed my table he nodded and touched the brim of his faded baseball cap, suppressing a smile.

Angela's eyes widened. "Oh. My. God. Bella, you do realize that was the equivalent of going to second base with Edward Cullen?"

"I certainly hope not." I frowned and tried to look disinterested.

"Seriously. That's more interaction than I've seen him initiate in...years."

Edward and I were scheduled to go on our date in six days. On Thursday. I had a morning class, and then we were going to get lunch and take it from there. I allowed my girly inner self to proclaim that it was the most highly anticipated event of my semester so far, but I did my best to keep my emotions in check. Outwardly, at least.

Angela and I continued reviewing the file, making notations where we thought disconnected stories might be parts of a narrative. I had no idea how much time had passed, when a voice suddenly startled the two of us. Edward.

"Hello, Bella, Angela. Listen, Bella, Sue says Emily's expecting you out at the farm tomorrow? I'm heading out there, too, processing some fresh combs for Sam." For some reason, images of cock's combs came to mind, which made me blush, because of the word _cock_, which was ridiculous. He must mean honey combs, I realized. Uley honey. It was all coming together. That was a much better mental image than Edward butchering chickens. Sometimes I had no idea why my brain worked the way it did. I sighed and shook my head.

Edward was watching my face curiously.

"Anyways...would you want to carpool?"

I found my tongue. "Sure. I can go any time. How about 4 or 5 p.m.?"

"Let's say 4. I'll pick you up." And with a slight nod of his head to me and Angela, he turned and strode out the door.

I was at a loss for what to say to Angela. "His sister Alice is my next door neighbor."

Angela, for her part, looked like her eyes were going to pop out of her head.

~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.

The next day, Edward pulled up at four, as planned, in a boxy old silver Volvo station wagon. I shoved my bag of note-taking equipment and digital camera into the back seat. It had been raining, but it was sunny now. Dead, wet leaves were scattered all over the sidewalks and some of the roads, glinting and sending up an earthy smell.

"We need to make a couple of quick stops on the way, if that's okay."

I snuck a peek at Edward. I loved that his daily uniform seemed to consist of some combination of soft cotton tees, soft fitted flannel button-downs, and broken-in jeans or cargo pants. I couldn't say the same for many of the other professors, who looked visibly uncomfortable in their own clothes. I'd seen him in wide-wale corduroys a few times, too. Even his boots were rugged and purposeful.

He saw me peering at him and responded by explaining where we were going.

"I told Sue Clearwater I'd pick up a prescription for her at the hospital, and I need to grab some beekeeping equipment Sam needs. It should only take 15 minutes, I hope you don't mind."

"No, not at all. It's nice of you to go out of your way like this."

"Well, Sue's getting older, and since Harry died - - that's her husband - - we...my family...we try to help her out. She'd do the same for us. Has done, many times. She shouldn't drive when it's wet out like this."

"It's wonderful that she has you." He looked like he wanted to shrug it off, but since it was impossible to tell if I meant to compliment his whole family and not just him, he seemed torn. He scrubbed the back of his neck.

"Well. Like I said. It goes both ways." But a moment later, he relaxed and smiled. "But thanks."

When we pulled up to the hospital, I decided to go in and check with Carlisle's nurse on the results of some tests from the previous week.

Edward's errand took about as long as mine did, and we met each other again

just in front of the student clinic on the way to the exit. Edward stopped in his tracks. "Your scarf. It must be in Carlisle's office. You'll need it, the radio said it's going to get colder tomorrow. And your shoelaces are coming untied." I laughed at him. He smirked at me, chagrined to be caught fussing over me. "Shut up, you. You and your shoes finish up here, I'll go get your scarf."

I perched on the little hallway bench and started tightening up my laces. A couple of undergrads were stumbling over each other at the exit to the student clinic, clutching their excuse notes or morning after pills or whatever it was undergraduates needed at a student clinic on Saturday afternoons.

The one with dark blond hair gasped, clutching her platinum-haired friend by the elbow. "Oh my god, was that professor Cullen? What do you think he's doing here?"

My ears perked up. Her voice was giddy, keyed up. I recalled Angela on the day of the farmer's market, how we reminded ourselves not to blatantly objectify Edward. Only this time, I prepared myself to gloat secretly. Eye candy, yes. My eye candy...maybe. And that was why what I heard next knocked the breath out of me.

Her platinum-blond friend answered. "So this is where he's been hiding out? Probably trolling the psych wing for his next girlfriend." They both snickered.

"Seriously. He can save himself a step this way."

"Maybe I should get myself admitted. Do you think then he'd fuck me? Maybe we could spice things up with a straight jacket?" Their cackling laughter pierced through my eardrums.

"It would be so worth it. He might be a sick fuck, but the word on the street is he's, like, an orgasm machine."

I was vaguely aware of their high-pitched voices growing fainter, their flip flops flipping away down the linoleum hallway. I stayed hidden behind my curtain of hair, trying to remember to breathe. All the blood had drained from my face. And then I became vaguely aware of a shadow hovering over me, unmoving.

I prepared myself to see anger on his face. I expected his features to mirror the indignation I felt, the disappointment at the stupid cruelty of unthinking young women who entertained themselves with fantastic lies. Instead, when I finally turned my face up, what I saw caused me to gasp. His face was blank as a stone. His dead eyes challenged me. This was the face of resignation and defeat, and it all but acknowledged the truth of what those stupid, stupid girls had said.

He simply let his eyes drop to the ground, and draped my scarf around my neck without ever meeting my gaze again. "So, Bella. Shall we?"

~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.

Five minutes later, propelled along down a country road in Edward's Volvo, neither of us had spoken. I couldn't take it any longer.

"I'm not afraid of you."

He snorted. He opened his mouth to speak, then closed it.

"That's the stuff dreams are built on, huh? You're 'not afraid' of me." He looked at me now, then back to the road. Back and forth. Back and forth. "What are we supposed to build together based on that kind of a foundation?" He immediately cringed, realizing what he had just said.

My pulse raced at the hint that he was even thinking about building something together. And another thing - - a scrap of evidence for my Edward dossier: When he got agitated, he was less careful, had less of a vice grip holding back the way he really felt. But that wasn't the main issue right now.

"I don't know what those girls back there were talking about - -"

"No, you don't."

"Edward. I heard you tell Carlisle that we didn't have sex - - that because of 'who you are' of course we didn't have sex." His ears burned when I quoted his words back to him. "There's obviously something. Whatever it is, Edward...is it...do you have a fetish? Is that it?" I wanted him to tell me. Voluntarily.

"It's not like that." His posture relaxed just slightly. He gave me a pleading look, verging on apologetic. He pulled the car over to the gravelly side of the road and put it in park.

"I don't have a hospital fetish or whatever that gossip was about. Have I had sex in the hospital? Yes. A few times." He gave me a warning glance, telling me I wouldn't like what I was about to hear. "Once with a medical records clerk who worked for my father. Samantha. She was cute, I guess, and she unbuttoned her blouse in the file room."

I blanched. More than the scene he described, the tone of his voice chilled me. It was the cold, clipped tone he'd used with Carlisle the morning when he denied having sex with me. I realized now the spite in his voice was directed at himself.

There was more.

"Then there was the time my date tripped and broke her pinky finger at the bowling alley and I drove her to the urgent care clinic. Lina. We were waiting forever, and we were bored, so we fucked in the stairwell. She held her hand in the air the whole time. It was a black and blue mess, but did that stop me? No. She wanted it, so I did it."

Edward shifted uncomfortably. His voice grew quieter. He rubbed his forehead above his eyebrows, closing his eyes.

"Um. And another time with a woman whose husband had just died. I was supposed to be doing art therapy with her, how sick is that? She begged me to do it while the sheets still smelled like him. She was desperate to feel anything besides grief, and that meant my dick. I should have said no, but I didn't."

I winced at the image this conjured up, and at Edward's obvious self-loathing. I felt a little bit sick to my stomach.

"Bella, those are just three people..." He looked at me out of the corner of his eye. "...on a long list."

He scrubbed his face with his two hands. "I've slept with former students, Bella. Figure models from the drawing studio. Women on the faculty. The wives of colleagues. I've had sex with some amazing, self-possessed women, but also some women who were one unkind word away from a nervous breakdown."

My eyes must have been saucers. Of course it shouldn't surprise me that he'd gotten around. But hearing the details - - no, not details, _categories_ - - was a little overwhelming.

"Bella. Say something."

I put my most rational self in charge - - for now. "So, you're telling me you've had a lot of sex. With willing partners. That's not so surprising. You're...hot." I took my opportunity and gave him a blatant once-over. I mean, seriously. I struggled to squash the feelings of jealousy and inadequacy that surged within me. I reminded myself that Edward was opening up to me here. Sharing something from his past. I wished it had been anything but _this_. Then again, there was a reason it was _this_. Some reason, something he needed me to know. This the beginning of a bigger discussion, and I needed to keep from derailing it.

"You were safe, I hope?"

He hesitated for a split second, and I felt goosebumps race up my arms. Then he hurried to answer me. "Well, yes, in the way you're probably thinking, yes. I'm clean. I was always careful, and I got tested constantly. And drugs were never a factor."

"But I was pretty reckless in other ways. Bella, the person I was then...I didn't think twice about people's feelings. Their feelings, my feelings. Ever. I did what felt good in the moment. And one day, I found out there were consequences to being that disconnected."

Edward was calmer now, the soft timbre returning to his voice. His eyes flickered with distant memories. "And it shook me to my core. I don't ever want to feel that way again. I don't ever want to...well, I don't ever want to put myself in that position again. So I decided sex was one thing I could make a choice about, one way I could keep from hurting people so thoughtlessly."

"So, you're telling me...you're celibate?" _Please say no, please say no, please say no_.

"Well, not as a rule. That's the practical outcome, but no. I'm not celibate. It's just that casual sex is a no go. And since I haven't exactly been seeking out a relationship..." I looked at him steadily, waiting for him to continue. "I haven't had sex in three years, Bella."

Oh.

_Oh._

This was a lot to absorb. Three years was an eternity. Maybe only I thought so. I eyed him skeptically.

He answered my unasked question. "Believe me, Bella, sex is important to me. But so is intimacy. Remember when we were talking, in your kitchen, and you said you believed intimacy was a matter of revealing your inner self? A side of you no one else knows? I was using sex to keep people away, as a substitute for intimacy."

This still didn't tell me why he never pursued a relationship in all that time. Why was he punishing himself, as Alice had suggested? Why did he feel so undeserving?

"And then there are the rumors. Like what you heard back there." I could almost physically see the way this weighed on him. It pressed his shoulders down, crumpling his beautiful posture into a sad and broken frame. "I brought that on myself, you know. I have no defense against that. People can say whatever they like, and half of it is true."

"It's _not _true, Edward. Not half of it, not even one percent of it. I don't think people have the slightest idea who you are. Especially people who think they can pigeon-hole you with a few words."

He pulled his lips into a faint smile, looking wistfully at me. The look on his face reminded me of a look I had seen on Renee's face, oddly enough, when she searched the mirror for a trace of her younger self. "_There I am, Bella-baby. Hiding under my own skin_," she would say.

"Bella," he said suddenly. His eyes traveled up and down my body now, unabashedly.

"I don't have the strength to stay away from you."

_What? _

I murmured the only thing that sprang into my mind. "Then don't."

_I mean, seriously, what?_

He sighed. And he continued, faltering, searching for his words. "You aren't a person _anyone_ should stay away from. What I mean is, when I'm with you, I am...so overcome by sensation. I am drawn to you like a...powerful magnet or...like water flowing downhill." Now he laughed softly at himself, knowing he wasn't making sense. He looked down at the key ring his hands were idly fondling.

"Spending time with you has been like breaking down a dam of sensation and emotions and...I like it. Very much." His eyes locked into mine again. "But I need you to understand that I had my reasons for putting up that dam in the first place, and I'm just not sure those _reasons_ are gone even if the dam is crumbling. Does that make sense, Bella?"

It did. More than he could know, I understood.

"I just need to not lose control with you."

All I could do was nod. "I can handle waiting, Edward."

Edward turned to face forward again. The engine roared to life, and we were back on the road.

~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.

A few moments later, we pulled onto an unpaved side road that turned out to be a long driveway leading up to a round stone barn in a wide, sunny clearing. I'd seen these barns in photographs, and toured one once years ago. They were fairly common in Ohio, dating back to early Shaker settlers. This barn was in exceptionally good condition, two stories high, with up-to-date tuck pointing and white washed woodwork. I waited while Edward loaded some supplies and wooden things from the barn into the back of the Volvo.

I rolled up the sleeves on my plaid shirt and wondered anew whether my cut-off corduroys were intended as warm weather or cold weather attire. I was still getting the hang of this midwest fall weather, and this mild warm-up threw me for a loop.

Once we arrived at the Uley farm I stood back and watched while Edward lifted his supplies - - a stack of flat wood-and-wire frames - - from the back of the Volvo and carried them into Sam's honey processing room, which consisted of a large, brightly lit pantry between the garage and the big farmhouse kitchen. The frames were reusable, but Edward had a deal with Sam where he would build new frames and trade them for used ones because he liked the qualities of the used frames, stained with honey and sticky with beeswax, which he would disassemble and incorporate into his sculptures. The room was equipped with some metal tables and containers. Deep freezers, which Edward explained were used on processed combs to kill any traces of bacteria, lined one wall. A bunch of wooden screens full of waxy honeycombs were waiting on a table. I was relieved to learn that the bees themselves were kept elsewhere, some distance from the house.

Something occurred to me. I realized I was considering stretching out my own fact-finding mission into multiple trips if it meant spending more time with Edward. I had to snort at myself for engaging in such high-school-style plotting.

"So, is this a regular thing with Sam? I mean, is it like your part time job or something?"

"Well, no. Sam knows he can call me if he needs an extra hand or whatever, but normally I just come out here to clear my head." He was literally rubbing his palms together in anticipation. "It's just a way of working with my hands at times when I'm creatively blocked, that's all. Maybe something comes of it - - an idea. Maybe not." He shook his head then. I gathered he didn't mean to mention that he was creatively blocked - - but I already had heard hints of this from Alice.

"Well...I'll leave you to your...wood. Er." _Great, Swan. That was pitiful._ I spun on my heel and high-tailed it out of there, more eager than ever to get to my cataloging.

~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.

Two hours later, Sam poked his head into the barn to tell me Edward was just finishing up for the day. I had made a lot of progress cataloging and taking snapshots of the intricate quilt patterns, but it was somewhat tedious work and I was glad to wrap it up. As promised, the textiles were unlike anything I'd seen before. There seemed to be a lexicon of stitches, colors, textures, and repetitions that I was sure correlated to some special meaning. The next step would be to codify the elements using a computer program and then begin decrypting. Actually, I might not even need a computer for this. I folded and stored the pile of textiles I was working on and removed my white cotton gloves.

When I found Edward again, right where I had left him, he was the dictionary definition of a hot mess. His flannel shirt was discarded on the back of a chair, leaving him in just a worn raglan sleeve T-shirt, damp and clingy, and tan Carhartt pants. His three-quarter length sleeves were pushed up past his elbows. Some type of rough canvas smock-apron hung from his hips. He was glowing a little from exertion, and a bead of sweat perched at his temple, threatening to begin a slow roll down toward his jaw where it would encounter a waxy smear of honey residue. _Stop staring. Say something. _

I blurted, "So, did you get any ideas?"

He looked at me, the corners of his mouth turning up. "Uh. Yeah." His voice was gravelly. His gaze returned to the containers and instruments as he set about closing lids and scraping excess goo from the tools, then finally untying his stiff, gummy apron and putting it aside. "I guess you could say that."

I waited for him to bend into the utility sink to wash the honey off of his hands and forearms, but he turned his back to it and leaned for a moment, regarding me. Suddenly he was stalking toward me, slow and purposeful, and then his hand was cupping my jaw. He dragged the sticky pads of his fingers across my cheeks as if drawing a trail for the Hansel and Gretel of his mouth to follow later. I let out a huff of breath as his eyes roamed my face, tracing the mushroom cloud of scarlet that I could feel blooming across my skin. My goodness. Wow. Wait, was it possible this was just a friendly, like, face-caress? Did such a thing exist? My brain was obviously scrambled. Aaaand...now his thumb, brushing over my lower lip, tugging to open my mouth. Nothing just-friendly about that.

God help me, but when I eased my lips apart just the slightest bit, I made sure his thumb met some tension from the ridges of my teeth as he pushed gently into my mouth. My tongue, the rough top part of it and then the slippery underside of it, found his thumb and he tasted like salty, smoky, sweet honey. My tongue rolled lazily around his thumb of its own accord now.

I heard him gasp. "_Holy hell, Bella,_" he half-whispered.

I let my eyes dart back to his face and saw that his brow was furrowed the tiniest bit, eyes hooded, his jaw slack. Slack-jaw Edward was contending for my favorite Edward. I wanted to see more of slack-jaw Edward. I rolled my face toward his palm then, taking more of his thumb into my mouth without thinking. Without warning, his mouth crashed down onto the corner of mine, his own thumb in between for a moment, as he continued to pry softly against my lower lip, running the edge of his thumb along my teeth, gently sucking my bottom lip between his. Christ, he smelled like honey and sawdust and sweat. Now his open mouth, and not his hands, was pressed against mine, keeping us both still as he paused to draw in a shaky breath.

He pulled away slightly, and my heart sank a little. _So soon?_ His voice was low, his words clipped. "Your hair. I don't want to get honey in your hair. Tie it back."

_Oh! _I scrambled to yank the elastic from my wrist and pulled together the world's fastest ponytail. Bossy Edward was good. Now he was grinning. And then he dove at me, kissing me eagerly, tracing his sticky hands over my cheeks and forehead, drawing his lips and tongue anywhere he found honey and some places he didn't.

Groaning breaths and light happy noises escaped one or both of us. His mouth was at my throat now, my clavicle now. My hands were in his hair, clutching him to my neck, then yanking him softly up so I could find his earlobe, his throat, his collarbone. That place after the stubble ends and before the chest hair begins. His earlobe again.

"So, this is okay? Making out?" I mumbled into ear.

"Yes, this is okay. Fuck, yes." He groaned into my neck, punctuating his words with tastes of my skin. "I decided...we can still take it slow, right?...and if you can just...I mean...it should be easier to control myself...if you help me." Christ, that was bordering on inhumane, but it was still fucking hot. I could hear the vulnerability in his voice. "You'll help me, right, Bella?"

Was he trying to kill me? "Yes, Edward. Yes." I was panting. Literally panting. In another context, another plane of reality, that would mean _yes, take me now_. But, unbelievably, I meant the opposite. "And by yes, I mean..."

"I know what you mean." I couldn't believe I had just agreed to help him _not_ plunder my virtue.

He whispered against my skin, "I want you. So much." Explosions. Gah. "Just be patient. I'll take care of you, Bella. I promise."

His hands went to my hips, lifting me onto the freezer as he stood between my legs and put his weight on his hands, leaning his torso toward me. My teeth made an appearance again, not biting but ridging along his throat, trailed by my tongue. He lifted and twisted his chin, giving me just a bit more delicious real estate to work with there in the throat/jawbone neighborhood. He let out a feral moan that I think even shocked him a little bit.

And then his hands were on my bare knees. His fingers danced at the fringed edge of my cutoffs. His thumbs drew lazy circles around my kneecaps, and my body started throbbing, straining, willing his hands to keep moving up, around, anywhere. Suddenly he drew a deep breath and sighed, resting his forehead against mine, clutching both my hands in his. He cleared his throat, but his voice still squeaked hoarsely when he spoke.

"Oh, good god. Timing."

Then I heard it. The automatic garage door in the adjacent room was opening. In a moment, Emily and her cousin would be barging in. I moved to stand up, willing my face to at least partially return to a normal shade of lighter-than-beet-red. But Edward, instead of assuming a nonchalant stance in anticipation of being seen by his friends, pulled me off of the freezer toward him, clutching me in a tight embrace. We stood like that, me melting into Edward, Edward enfolding me in his strong arms, burying his face in my shoulder as Emily and Leah walked through the room toward the kitchen door, burdened with groceries.

They didn't so much as blink.

"Are you gonna get the door for us, Edward?"

And then he said words I never knew to dream he would say, and better yet, I could hear the smile in his voice as he spoke.

"Get it yourself. I'm holding my girl."

A million hours later, or maybe mere seconds later, when I snapped out of my stunned daze, Edward had the top-loading freezer open and was leaning into it. He pulled out a square plastic container full of drippy honey comb. I could have sworn he wiggled an eyebrow at me ever so slightly.

"I'm taking this," he announced, waving the container. Leah and Emily, joined by Sam from inside the house, just gaped with bemused expressions. Without further elaboration, Edward pulled me by the hand out into the driveway where we tumbled into his Volvo, laughing. Edward pulled out onto the road.

Gah. What just happened? _Get it yourself. I'm holding my girl. _Leah and Emily had just chuckled at his uncharacteristic cheekiness. What about Edward's reputation, of late, for steering clear of most people and all females? I was seriously worried that one of the cousins would have an aneurysm from shock, but they didn't bat an eyelash between them. It baffled me, so...I asked him.

"Um, Edward?"

"Yeah." He had a bit of a permagrin-or a permasmirk-on his face as he glanced my way.

"So...Oh! First of all, good going back there with the mind-scrambling...handsy...um, you know." I shook my head rapidly as if I could shake my idiocy away like an annoying fly. "But, how come Emily and Leah didn't seem all that...surprised? To walk in on you more or less groping me?" _Shit, I had a goddamn Ph.D. and this was the best I could do_?

Blargh. I shrunk down a bit in my passenger seat, mortified. But then I arched back up again, remembering the feeling of his hands on me.

"Well," he said, considering this. "Well. I guess they should have been, huh? It's not like I bring a lot of girls there to secretly grope, as you well know. I mean, women. Neither women nor girls. No groping."

Now both of us were giggling again. I blamed endorphins.

"As for Emily and Leah, I think they've both been through some unexpected stuff in their own relationships, so nothing's shocking. Not even me getting together with a woman...I mean, not even me getting together with _you_. And I shouldn't have said 'secretly,' either. I don't mean for this to be secret." He paused. He was mulling something over. We rode in silence for a moment.

Before I knew it we had come to a stop in my driveway. Edward shifted in his seat to face me.

"Bella, back there...I'm sorry. That was unfair of me to bring up in the heat of the moment like that, about you helping me stick to my guns. I'm not trying to put the burden on you when I'm the one who wants to take it slow. I just don't know how this works. This is the first time I've ever not rushed into having sex."

"I know, Edward. It's kind of counter-intuitive, isn't it? But listen, I said earlier that I could handle waiting, and I can. And in the meantime...I don't mind if you get me hot and bothered once in a while rather than have you never touch me at all."

And just like that, the mood lifted. His mischievous grin returned. "So. 'Mind-scrambling,' huh?"

For a while, we sat and talked in the car, rehashing the day and discussing the week ahead. I twisted in my seat so I could face him squarely. I liked that I was getting comfortable with Edward, and I liked that he was feeling more at ease speaking up about what was on his mind.

"Edward, where are we going to go on our date? Can you tell me?" We were both laughing at the very idea of this so-called 'date,' it felt like such a throwback to an earlier era.

"I thought we could get lunch, then take it from there. We're supposed to get a drop in temperature, but a warm-up on Thursday. Maybe even Indian Summer. So, if it's nice, we can go for a walk. In the woods or whatever. You like to walk, I think?"

"Yeah, I do. That sounds great, Edward."

And then I saw something that made me stop in mid-sentence, momentarily flummoxed. He continued to chatter on about the forest in Fall, but when he stopped suddenly with a sharp gasp, I knew that he saw what I saw. My eyes were locked on it. No bigger than a postage stamp, sending up a faint aroma of sticky sweetness, was a smear of honey on my left knee.

And all at once, I felt my heart begin to race, and I realized what I was going to do. What I needed to do.

I folded my arms and tilted my head against the seat back next to me.

"Edward."

"Yes, Bella."

"I should be getting inside, but...we seem to have a predicament here."

He let out a quick laugh. He knew exactly what I was up to. "Are you sure about that?" He was still looking at my bare knee.

"Yes...well, pretty sure." I raised my eyes to his, slowly, and he raised his own to meet mine, eyes narrowing. I went on, "You strike me as a person who prides himself on being thorough."

"Mmm-hmmm." He looked down again, his gaze riveted to my knee.

"Would you say that that's true, Edward?"

"Yes, it's true." I could do this. He was determined to stay in control, I could see that. And I was determined to show him just how in-control he could be.

"But I also seem to remember you promising something about taking care of me, isn't that right?"

Long pause. "Right again. I...I did promise." His eyebrows furrowed. He swallowed.

"And I believe that you would never knowingly drop me off in such a disgraceful, disheveled condition." Okay, that was a bit of a stretch. It was just a smudge. Let's see if he would go for it. I was struggling to keep my voice calm and even. "It isn't like you, is it?"

"No." He whispered.

"So, what are we going to do about this?"

He looked at me, pleading. In slow motion, he reached over and released his seat belt. He opened and closed his mouth. Finally, he breathed out, hoarse and low, "I'm going to make it better, Bella."

_Yes, you are_. I didn't say that out loud. At least, I don't think I did.

We were twisting to face each other in our bucket seats, our bodies mirroring each other. He reached one hand out to still one knee, the clean one, gripping my thigh firmly. He raised his other hand to his mouth and licked his thumb, his eyes gleaming. And then he reached out to drag his wet thumb along the sticky smear that stained my left kneecap, lifting most of the honey off. I could feel his roughly calloused skin, I could feel it in every cell of my body.

And slack-jawed Edward was back. He was watching my face.

I began to second-guess my bravado when he raised his thumb to his mouth and licked the honey off. Gah. What was I thinking? I was out of my depth. I closed my eyes, burning the image into my memory.

And then I was really in trouble. Because when I opened my eyes again, a devilish spark appeared in Edward's eyes, and the corners of his mouth turned up in a smirk. Still holding my right leg firmly, he began to bend forward. Specifically, his beautiful head with its beautiful mouth was moving incrementally closer to my deliciously sticky kneecap.

Oh, no. Oh no oh no oh no. Except...oh yes.

He froze in midair for a moment, hovering, then moved an inch closer. Then another inch. He was definitely torturing me. I held my breath, watching him through my lashes, unable to decide whether to close my eyes or keep them open, until I felt a few strands of his floppy hair tickle my inner thigh. _Oh, fuck._ I guess I said that out loud, based on Edward's low chuckling. He lingered for a moment, and then...and then...swept his tongue across my knee.

Once. Twice. Back, forth.

I deep groan left his lips, vibrating through all the bones in my body. One final swirl of his tongue almost sent me over the edge. Then he breathed against my knee, smiling, "There."

I half expected to spontaneously combust. I had never been more turned on in my life. I knew this was as far as he would take things, but I mentally calculated that I would be getting myself off within about one minute of being alone inside my house.

Edward raised his head up, flushed crimson and grinning wickedly.

"There," I squeaked, miserably failing at keeping up my stern facade. "Doesn't that feel better?"

"Bella." He rested the side of his head on the steering wheel, his hands gripping the wheel at 4 and 10. "I can't possibly tell you how this feels."

He just looked into my eyes for a moment. "You do understand that I won't be walking you to your door, right? I'm not moving my hands from this steering wheel. Now, are you going to take yourself inside and finish what I started?"

My eyes widened. Yes. Yes, I was. _How did he know?_ Of course he knew. He was going to do the same thing when he got home. _Did I just whimper? _My legs were jelly, but I somehow managed to climb out of the car. And swing the heavy door shut. And stumble inside. And collapse against the door, effectively closing it behind me as I sank to the floor in a giddy heap.

~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.

**AN: Yes, Edward drives a Volvo station wagon. As a sculptor, he can't have a fancy car, he needs something that can transport a lot of random, large equipment and junk (when he's not borrowing Bella's new truck). Don't worry, he makes it look hot in that I-don't-give-a-damn way of his. BTW, if you came across this due to a recommendation, please let me know who to thank! **

**My goal is to get on a regular Tuesday evening update schedule, but it will deviate because of uncontrollable 'real-life' work stuff. Thanks all, please jot me some reviews! **


	9. Chapter 8: Sparks

**Twilight is the property of Stephenie Meyer. So are the Twilight characters. Other artists and musicians are cited in the text, and everything else is my original work.**

**Playlist:**

**My One Desire - Freakwater****  
River - Akron/Family**  
And you are now vast and open sea  
And my mind travels you endlessly  
And you beckon, toss, and toss, and swallow me  
And once this spark-met kindling forgets its gentle ambling  
Becoming heat, becoming steam, becoming luminescent glee  
Atoms splinter, sparkling, a live and nimble symmetry  
And all along, this glistening, blankets we and everything

**Chapter 8: Sparks**

At Muddywater's for the second morning in a week, I sat in my favorite tan pleather booth and cupped my hot coffee mug. Then I wiped my hands on my cords. My palms were sweating.

I took a deep breath, closing my eyes and taking in the comforting aroma of garlicky potatoes. There was something I needed to do, and I needed to do it right now. From across the booth, a pair of twinkling eyes watched me expectantly.

"Alice...I'm...well, I'm sort of...I'm going on a date with your brother."

She just pursed her lips at me and narrowed her eyes. But then her face broke into a sly smile. "Bella, I know."

"What? Oh, then...okay. But how? Did he say something?" It occurred to me that Emily could have said something. Or Leah. Or Sam. Of course, that made me recall the entire torture-by-honey episode for the thousandth time in three days and I think I blushed a tiny bit. Alice eyed me, amused.

"Well, I didn't know about a specific date, but I knew something was up last week when he dropped the chef's knife in my kitchen. I've seen Edward carve ice with a chainsaw while hanging from a harness four stories above the ground. I'm not saying he doesn't have issues, but clumsiness isn't one of them."

This was helpful information to know. And this was also a helpful mental image to file away. I considered asking Alice to describe what Edward was wearing that day. And, also, how tight was this harness? The sound of her clearing her throat softly broke me out of my daze. Right. She was his sister. It didn't feel appropriate to have her travel down that particular road with me.

"But, Alice, be serious. How do you feel about it? I can see that you two are working on your own connection, and I don't want to get in the way of that."

"See, Bella, that's just it. You noticing that? I want that quality in whoever my brother '_goes on a date'_ with." She made air quotes when she said this, suggesting she saw more to it than just going on a date.

I relaxed back into the booth. "Alice, I really like him. I do hope it's more than just a date." Wasn't it already more than a date? He had called me _his girl_. But then again, his hot and cold moods were giving me whiplash. Wait, I was mixing my metaphors. But all the same.

I thought back to his text message the morning after my birthday. All it had said was: _9/24?_ This, after our stairwell kiss for the record books. After I'd fainted in front of him. I'd poured my heart out about my mother. About the surgery. He had felt for my heartbeat through the cage of my ribs, no other sound but our shaky breaths in the cab of my truck.

And now: _9/24? _This was his way of arranging the date he'd asked me on. And: he was making me wait ten days? I had answered in kind: _9/24 lunch?_ If he wanted to cool his heels, well, nothing put a damper on things like a lunch date. And his response, which I had to admit made me laugh: _Well played._ Whatever would I do with him?

Then the morning after our memorable trip to Sam's farm - - and our brief detour to the republic of my kneecap - - another text: _OMG. _Nothing could have been more out of character, which was why it was hilarious and sweet. But how was he so confidently cheeky some moments, and so guarded and brooding the next?

Alice was watching me, smirking. "I believe you. I would tell you it's not going to be easy, but I have a feeling you know that."

I nodded, looking down into my coffee.

"I said before that I hated seeing him close himself off to people like he has been. That doesn't just apply to myself and my family alone. It's people in general. Interaction is like food to him. Or, it used to be. If you could only see who he was, Bella...who he still is under all those layers he's put on. I refuse to believe..." She stopped herself, biting her lip and shaking her head.

"But I'm putting too much pressure on you. You're only just getting to know him. I only wanted to say that of course we all want more time with him, but believe me, Bella...once he defrosts, there's plenty of Edward to go around. Don't feel badly about spending time with him. If you're the person he opens up to, well, I couldn't imagine a better scenario."

She reached across the table and gave my forearm a squeeze. "Now, will you quit hoarding the honey, or can I get in on that?"

I blanched, then blushed, then handed it over.

Alice laughed, giving up all hope of interpreting my reaction. "Bella, seriously, your face is an open book. I can see everything you're feeling, even if I don't understand what's behind it half the time. I love it. I hope it never changes."

I sighed. This was the bane of my existence. "Well, get used to it. I don't think I could change it if I wanted to, believe me."

~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.

On Tuesday and Thursday mornings, I had my American City Planning seminar. This wasn't my core interest area, but I was equipped to teach it, and the students who enrolled were pretty motivated, so it was shaping up to be a pretty good experience. I took the class outside this Thursday, because the temperature had rebounded from the mid-40s to the 70s, and it was expected to stay this way for a mere two or three days. Indian Summer. The prevailing wisdom said this was the last time any of us in this town would feel the sun on our skin until April of next year, and seemingly nobody was letting this little weather anomaly go to waste. The steps to the classroom buildings were a mass of pasty-skinned limbs in short sleeves and sundresses. The main square teemed with students meeting with their classes or throwing frisbees.

The ground was thoroughly wet underneath a thin layer of brown leaves, which made me nix the classic seated discussion circle format. That was a recipe for damp, muddy pants. I could already see some other professor's students in a circle across the way, squirming and sitting gingerly on their own hands. Instead, I walked my class around the perimeter of the square, pausing as they picked out examples of civic planning decisions. Things like the placement of traffic lights and one-way streets and crosswalks, which reinforced a pedestrian culture on campus.

As we made our way along the sidewalk, I noticed a sculpture class was also being held outside. Benjamin Amun's class, it looked like. From what I had seen in the faculty gallery, Benji worked in traditional sculpture media - - bronze casting, metals, stone. And right now, he seemed to be overseeing a tutorial on welding. The group was gathered on the far end of the square, but the spectacle of glowing white and amber sparks shooting into the air caught all of our attention. After a moment, the demonstrator stepped back, turned off his torch, and lifted up his opaque metal safety mask to wipe sweat from his face and answer questions. I swallowed an involuntary gasp. Edward. With him was Rosalie, tag-teaming the question-and-answer session and, in that way of hers, sharply observing which students were paying attention and which were likely to be safety hazards in the metal shop she was in charge of.

I turned back to my class, determined to stay focused. The sun was especially bright, and I realized it was because the leaves had fallen from most of the trees and there was nothing left to shade the sun's rays. I stopped us near the dandelion oak tree and tried to drum up some discussion. "Other than providing a place for us to enjoy a beautiful day, why even have a town square at all? Why not develop the land with businesses that would contribute to the tax base?"

Mike Newton, a student athlete with a sweet nature but a simple mind, was ready with a knee-jerk answer, as usual. "Because the Masen family donated it."

Ben Cheney, my favorite diminutive senior, piped up. Just three weeks into the semester, he was revealing himself to be quite the civic planning nerd, which endeared him to me. "Right, but why did they? Here, Professor Cullen will know."

I spun around to where Ben gestured with a nod of his head. Edward was prowling along the path in his slow, purposeful way. When he saw a dozen heads turn his way, he slowed and meandered toward us, cautiously. He had left his protective gloves and apron behind and was in off-white painter's pants a thin white t-shirt. Soot dusted his arms and face, his stubbled jaw. Soot and sweat. It made the whites of his eyes..and the greens...pop in a way that made my knees go weak.

"Ed...ah...Professor Cullen, Ben here was just suggesting you might know why a family like the Masens would have donated land to establish a town square like this?"

He looked at me curiously, squinting like he was caught off guard. "Um..." I could see him mentally sorting through different ways to answer me. He frowned.

Ben jumped in. "Because you were born and raised here, right? You probably know some history."

This jolted Edward out of his indecision. "Oh. Yes. Well, my understanding is that members of the family had narrowly escaped a cholera epidemic while traveling. They believed overcrowded public markets encouraged the spread of infectious disease." He looked at me with one eyebrow halfway raised to see if this was helpful. Despite being momentarily distracted by the glint of sun in his eyes and sweaty, matted hair, I nodded. Edward knew things. This was better than okay.

He continued, "So, creating a wide-open space like this was better for the health of the community." There was a strange hesitancy in his eyes, like he was unsure of how much more to say.

Frankly, the exchange had made me more eager to wrap up the class and move on to the rest of my day, which involved lunch with Edward. Alone. "Mm-hmm. Thank you."

"It's my pleasure." He gave me a hint of a smile. How did he manage to dazzle me like that every time? "Enjoy the day."

I wasn't as adept at playing it cool, not even in front of my students. Enjoying the day meant enjoying my date with Edward, because that was all that was left on my agenda.

"Uh huh. I think I will." Gawd. Inwardly, I rolled my eyes.

~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.

As I wrapped up the rest of the discussion and sent the students on their way, I noticed Rosalie lingering nearby. I smiled at her, trying and failing to interpret her expression.

She returned my smile with a nod. "Are you walking home? I'm headed that way."

We walked for a while in silence. Her long legs would have easily outpaced me, but she slowed her gait to match mine.

I hadn't had much one-on-one conversation with Rose, beyond 'please pass the bread' and have you seen my scarf?' I decided to test the waters. "I thought Edward was on sabbatical - - why is he teaching class?"

"Oh, he's just helping out. We work well together on this welding demonstration. And honestly, he feels better when he can do it himself. Some of these students are so young, they can be a bit foolhardy. He feels very...protective of them."

I nodded.

Then, without any pretense of warming up to it, she launched into a short but pointed speech. "When I first met Edward, I was totally preoccupied with how hot he was."

I was doing the math before the words were even out of her mouth - - she had been dating Emmett for only 18 months, so she would have been in town and single before Edward entered his abstinent phase, if that's what you could call it.

Noticing my questioning eyebrows, and possibly a little bit of blind panic on my face, she quickly clarified. "I never dated him. I thought he was attractive, and he fascinated me, it's true. But he always gave off a brother-in-law vibe. It took me a long time to understand that as good-looking as he is, that's the least of what he has to offer."

Oh. That's what this was: a warning. As if I were out to jump him and dump him.

"Rose, I hope you don't think...I mean...I'm not..." Actually, what _did _I mean? So far, getting into Edward's pants had been dominating my conscious thoughts about him, if I was honest with myself. I liked spending time with him, too, but what else was there? So much was still waiting under the surface, hidden there, lurking there...but I had to admit to myself that I hadn't seen enough to know anything. Not yet.

"Listen, Rose, I'm only just getting to know Edward." That was one true thing I could say to her. "And...I also see the way your family regards him. The way you all stand up for him, like right now. That means something to me." That was another.

She nodded. Her expression was neutral - - not judging me, not blocking me out. She finally seemed to relax the tiniest bit. "Okay, Bella. It's not that I think you're some dragon lady swooping in to corrupt Edward. I just want you to be open. Don't rush to any conclusions, if you can help it. Now, what are you planning on wearing?"

~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.

An hour later, I was fiddling awkwardly with the hem of my cotton voile sundress, waiting for Edward's car to pull up. What was this, middle school? No, but only because middle schoolers didn't drive cars. This dress was kind of comfortable. It was vintage-ish without bordering on costume-y. The color was a pale butter yellow, which accomplished the miracle of making my skin look more healthy than sallow. But with all that being true, there was no doubt in my mind that I couldn't wear it.

I half-tripped up the stairs and made a hasty wardrobe change. Jeans and a button-down was the only way to go. These were the nice jeans, at least - - dark and a little tighter than my everyday, with a bit of stretch. And the shirt was kind of fancy, for Ohio. Fitted, soft. Brown. And my Converse low-tops. One mustn't appear _too_ eager. Anyways.

Edward didn't complain when he rolled up five minutes later. He grinned. He helped me into the car. He waited for me to buckle up. And then he revved the engine two times, quietly, giving a lighthearted chuckle, before backing out into the road.

That put me at ease. He was a master of the understated, and I felt like I was among a privileged few who ever go to witness it.

He peeked at me, glancing away from the road for a split second. "You look very nice."

"Thanks. So do you." He had showered and shaved since this morning. His hair was relatively tame, bouncing above his head. He was wearing my favorite flannel shirt, the one I thought looked the softest. It looked like it could have been made to measure just for him, and it had pearly snaps instead of buttons.

I recognized my feeling of strange, giddy delight from that morning not long ago, watching coffee fill my carafe in the post-dawn kitchen. The feeling had been visiting me from time to time, reminding me that it had taken up residence in my consciousness. Like a piece of popcorn skin that sticks in your teeth, only pleasant.

I was grinning at Edward. "Where are we going?"

He just looked at me, eyes crinkling. His glance said: _you'll see_.

I could live with that. But I still needed to get into some kind of conversational groove in order to settle the butterflies in my stomach.

"So, you started at Newcoven about seven years ago? I mean, to be taking a sabbatical?" That was the usual timeline. Sabbaticals were a way of keeping valued professors from getting burned out, while giving them time to complete major projects.

"This is my seventh year."

He glanced over at me again, anticipating the calculations I would be doing in my head.

"I'm 33. What can I say? I got started early. There's no PhD for art, only a two-year MFA, so depending on how productive you are, the timeline for getting on the tenure track can be much shorter for artists. For those of us who want that."

That made sense. A PhD in the humanities can take seven or more years, not counting the four undergraduate years, so even those of us who entered grad school straight away were almost thirty before we could hope to land any job at all, much less a tenure-track job. Even still, he was being modest. He had to be a fantastic artist and teacher to be in the position he was in.

"So, how is it? Being on sabbatical?"

"Hmm, I see how it is. Twenty questions. You realize I'm going to turn the tables on you once we sit down for lunch, right?"

I looked at him, eyebrows raised. He didn't scare me.

"Sabbatical is good. I miss teaching, but I've been getting a lot of good work done. Not to be all '_nobody understands my process_' but...nobody understands my process." He grew serious. "I know everyone thinks I'm not working. I'm just not _showing _work. Not until it's done."

He shook his head and snapped out of his little mood. "But, anyhow, the unstructured time is really helping. That's why I couldn't make plans with you until today. For most of last week, I was in the middle of a stage where I needed to tend to stuff every ten hours, or sometimes every three hours." And then, just like that, smoldering Edward was back. "And I want longer than three hours with you."

Gulp. As much as I wanted to encourage smoldering Edward, it didn't seem safe while we were driving, and anyways, he had said something that snagged my curiosity.

"So, every three hours means...do you sleep in the studio?"

"It's a site-specific installation I'm working on, so I'm at the site instead of a studio, but yes. Sleep, eat. Just during the time-sensitive steps." He paused, tugging at his hair and frowning. "Hey, Bella, so...as much as I want to share this with you as soon as possible, please don't take this personally - - you can ask Alice, ask anyone - - I'm one of those annoying types who doesn't discuss a work in progress."

"Oh! Oh, gosh! Yes, yes - - just tell me when to shut up."

His face melted into a sweet, crooked smile. "I'm not going to tell you to shut up. Especially now that we're here. I'm taking my turn, remember?"

Ooh. _Oh_ - - lunch. I took a look out the window and didn't see anything that resembled a restaurant. "A musical instrument store? Are we going to play instruments?"

"Come on, you'll see. This place is special."

He led me into the dark little shop, and as we passed glass cases full of brass instruments and hand drums, I could detect delicious food smells coming from somewhere. Edward pulled aside a black curtain and suddenly we were in a small, bustling little mom and pop restaurant.

"It's Cuban. And it's quiet. I thought we could talk, and students don't even know about it, and they have some vegetarian dishes because I noticed you don't eat a lot of meat..."

I stopped Edward in the middle of his sales pitch. "It's terrific. It smells amazing, and I'm hungry."

The proprietor, a little old woman with salt-and-pepper grey hair, came over and squeezed Edward's forearm familiarly. She exchanged a few words with him and seated us at a little table in the corner. A moment later she was back with soft bread and crispy fried yuca cubes. They were covered in garlic.

"Edward, did you put her up to this? Did you think you would need to ward me off or something?"

He smirked at me, leaning back in his chair a bit. "As if a little garlic would stop you," he teased. "No. This stuff is amazing, so you should eat some, in between answering every last one of my questions about your life."

"Alright. Do your worst." My facial expression contorted, but only because of how great this yuca thing tasted.

"What made you decide to come to Newcoven?"

Um. My memory flashed to that long-ago wintry tableau. Seeing Edward on his mysterious errand in the tree. I thought for a moment about what I had really been looking for then, and what I was still seeking, in a way. "Well, let's just say I saw a few things on my campus visit that told me there was something special about this place. Not just the college, but the community. Clearwater. I've never lived anywhere like this, and I wanted a fresh start...so, I just followed my instincts."

Our conversation paused for a moment while we ordered our meals.

"And where you were before...Phoenix...what was that like?"

"Oh, it was fine. I mean, beyond the obvious, er, low points. Renee and Phil were there, and a few friends I had made over the years on my visits." I knew that he knew Jacob was there, and I decided not to dredge it up here and now. "I didn't care for the dry climate. And everybody drives there, I couldn't get used to it. I wasn't miserable, but it just never felt like home to me."

"Home is Chicago," he guessed.

"Yeah." My eyes brightened, and Edward's brightened in response. "Charlie is there. And the neighbors who helped raise me...we lived on the south side, and Charlie worked odd hours as a security guard, so I was often left with the neighborhood ladies, usually hanging out in their shops or bars while they worked."

"You hung out in bars? As a little kid?"

"They were more like jazz and blues clubs, which didn't even open until late at night. So it wasn't like people were slinging booze left and right. I would do my homework or read in a booth while Ms. Ida sliced lemons and stuff. And the musicians would do their sound checks, and sometimes they would let me try out their drums."

"That sounds nice. Though maybe sort of lonely, for a kid."

"I didn't mind. There were some kids around. But I liked my books, and I liked the music."

"I'd like to see those places."

"The original Checkerboard closed a few years ago, but Ida's is still open." My mind was wandering back to those days and my favorite memories. "It's funny, maybe it's the setting of this restaurant and the music shop and everything, but when I think about it now, most of what I remember is these wonderful old, old blues men. They were always bald, or gray, often too skinny and arthritic, with ashy skin and drooping eyes. The way they walked, shifting their weight from one leg to the next like they were balancing on two stilts. And the eternity it took them to haul an amp across the room and set up all the cords and music stands. But they were patient. And when they played, I could see that they were so alive, even well into their nineties. It made me feel not so scared about getting old. About...people...getting old."

Time to change the subject. I fluttered my hands around until Edward stilled them, and I noticed tears were spilling onto my cheeks when Edward brushed them away with his fingertips.

"Bella, it's okay to feel sad about your mom. Jesus, it hasn't even been a year. Don't hide that, please. Is that why you were crying at Muddywater's with Angela the other day?" He left his hand on mine, gently stroking my wrist and the back of my hand.

"Oh. You noticed that?"

"Well, your eyelashes were all stuck together and, you know. Yes."

"Ah. Well, it sometimes comes out of nowhere, you know? Everything makes me think of her. We were reviewing some Dear Government Documents letters - -" I stopped, considering how to explain this.

But he was nodding. "I know about it." He smiled mysteriously, leaning forward and lowering his voice. "Everybody knew about it in middle school - - if you sent in a question that used the words 'my changing body' they would send back..." now he whispered, "_photocopied diagrams of naked women_."

And just like that, I was laughing again. I pictured Edward at age 11 or 12, getting an illicit thrill from _diagrams_.

"Well, good. I'm glad you've been properly educated with accurate information. Some of those letters are just heartbreaking, though - - we preserve the anonymity, of course - - but simply reading the stories can be tough. And it shocks me how commonplace it all seems. So, yes, I was remembering Renee."

Edward sighed sympathetically. Before we had a chance to pursue this morose new avenue, our lunches arrived, and the conversation mercifully turned to lighter topics.

As we ate, my eyes scanned the room, and I was struck with the variety of people of all ages surrounding us. An elderly pair who looked like they had been together for decades. A trio of middle-aged men, jocular and boisterous. Young parents struggling to interest their baby in some mashed beans. I wondered what Edward and I looked like to them.

Suddenly, both of our cell phones beeped simultaneously. His message, from his mom, and mine, from Alice, both told of last-minute plans for a bonfire at Carlisle and Esme's place later that night.

He searched my face, gauging my reaction. "What do you think? I can go either way. This might be the last chance this year, though, and a bonfire night is basically always wonderful. Very low-key."

The fact that he was open to the idea was enough to persuade me. And a big family bonfire sounded thoroughly midwestern and novel.

"Well, are you sure - - me meeting your parents? Am I dressed okay?" As awkward as it might be to meet the parents on a first date, nothing about how we were going about this was conventional, after all. This was par for the course.

He chuckled. "You're better than okay. And you've already met my father."

Even though Edward had tried to defuse my worry, I looked down at my jeans and sneakers, which now seemed to project a lack of enthusiasm. Carlisle was a doctor, and I'd heard that Esme was a former Newcoven trustee. That spelled power and wealth. Maybe they were very formal and proper.

Edward watched me fret with the wrinkles in my top, lending a hand to smooth my collar down. "Stop worrying about it. You'll see. Besides, you're dressed for a walk in the woods, right? It's completely appropriate."

I had forgotten about any talk of a nature walk. I felt myself smile involuntarily. Suddenly, my silly concerns fell away, and all I cared about was Edward and how we were going to spend the rest of the day. "Yes. Nature. Let's go get...leafy."

And then we were settling our bill - - Edward was settling it, pushing my money away with not-serious but sort-of serious chivalry - - and we were strolling back to the car. And then rolling down the road, windows down, breathing in the warm, damp air. And then walking in the woods, tripping over buried roots, scuffing our shoes on muddy rocks and stones. And Edward was kissing me against a mossy tree, and there was bark in my hair. And he was carrying me over muddy puddles as we climbed toward a lookout point, and I was picking pine needles out of his shirtsleeve. And he was swinging me off my feet, steering me away from a wood and metal footbridge toward to a better place to watch the sunset. And for the first time in a long time, I felt like someone free and content, someone not defined by loss, by lack. _His girl_.

~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.

As it turns out, the best way to top off a thrilling day of path-strolling and sunset-watching really is a bonfire. Particularly if that bonfire involves s'mores and an acoustic sing-along.

Jasper and Emmett took turns playing, with Alice occasionally joining in on a hand drum. They were good. I was treated to Freakwater's _My One Desire_, which made my ears burn. Jasper's exaggerated southern twang made Alice laugh sweetly, taking some of the spotlight off of Edward and me. Then the whole group joined in singing _Last Year_ by Akron/Family. Edward didn't so much sing as whisper the lyrics into my hair, his arm draped around me. _"Last year was a hard year for such a long time. This year is gonna be ours."_

When they moved on to another Akron/Family song, _River_, Edward picked up a shaker to accompany Emmett's husky singing, and I watched Esme's eyes turn to watery pools across the campfire. She blinked once and the tears were gone.

Earlier that evening, when Edward and I had pulled into the driveway, the fire was already raging, a cluster of faces circling it and glowing with warm amber light. His parents had broken away from the group to come greet us, and Esme surprised me by capturing me in a tight hug before Edward had a chance to say, "Bella, this is my mom, Esme."

She alternated hugging me and fussing over me as she gushed. "Bella. I've heard so much about you, dear - - from, well, the whole family. I was beginning to think three or four people named Bella had moved to town. What's this in your hair, sweetie? Never mind, I got it. Come on over and sit, there's plenty of blankets and hot buttered rum. Do you want a cinnamon stick in it? Are your shoes wet? You'll want to take off your shoes and toast your toes by the fire, it feels great."

Esme was nothing like what I expected. She wore a floppy hand-knit wrap sweater over loose cotton linen pants, and moccasin slippers on her feet. She was beautiful, with smooth, glowing skin and wavy shoulder-length hair that looked shiny and healthy. There was no hint of anything stiff and formal, and yet, despite her rambling, there was something rock-solid in her demeanor, something deeply grounded.

"Esme, let the girl breathe." Carlisle's voice was gentle and amused. "Bella, welcome. It's nice to see you here."

"Hi, Dr. Cullen, thank you for including me."

"It's 'Carlisle.' I leave 'Dr. Cullen' behind at the hospital if I can help it." I believed him. In his cargo shorts and long-sleeved tee shirt, he could have been Edward's older brother. There was no sign of the cool, detached professional who had treated me at the hospital - - only the kind, confident look in his eyes remained.

As I settled in next to Edward on a log bench by the fire, I glanced around the yard, searching for clues about the way this family lived and how Edward was raised. I felt myself relaxing more and more as I picked out artifacts in the darkness. Tire swing. Tree house. Chicken coop. A ramshackle outbuilding overgrown with weeds that looked like it might have seen years of use as a secret clubhouse.

Rose made sure I was acquainted with the basics of s'mores assembly. I roasted marshmallows for Edward and me on a two-pronged stick, giving each branch equal melting and browning time. By the time we arrived at the acoustic songs portion of the evening, I was perfectly warmed by the fire, the friendly company, and my mug of hot cider with rum. Edward had spent most of the evening expertly deflecting attention, gazing into the fire distractedly and observing his family. He seemed more guarded and careful now, among his family, than he had been with me earlier today. It may have been because they were watching him, too, clearly hungry for signs of the Edward they missed.

Eventually, Emmett and Rose roused themselves and said good night. They headed back to the house, taking empty mugs and instruments with them. Then Esme and Carlisle went inside, Esme promising me we'd visit more in the morning. Finally Jasper and Alice packed it in, and just Edward and I were left. I rested on my side on a wooly plaid blanket on the ground, using my hand as a pillow, as he doused every last ember of the fire.

Then he came and sat next to me, pulling more layers of blankets on top of us to counteract the loss of the fire. I could sense his fatigue, the exhaustion of the day, and I tugged him to lie on his side, spooning me as we watched the last wisps of smoke rise from the ashes.

I thought he had drifted off to sleep. Then I heard his voice, low and soft, in my ear. His chest hummed against my back. "We should go in. I can promise you Esme has made up your own private guest room. It's very comfortable."

"Hmm. Any minute now."

But the minutes came and went. I didn't want to change a thing. Crickets were chirping in the tall grass. The shape of the house was indistinct in the near distance, but I could see shadows moving behind curtains. Eventually, even the dim lights within the house went out.

Edward breathed into the back of my neck. "You smell so good. You smell...human."

He couldn't see me, but this comment made me frown. "Erm. I guess that's good."

His voice was a whisper now. The night was dark and deeply quiet around us. "You know what I mean. Like...when you meet a new person, they have a distinctive something about them, it just comes at you all of a sudden. This feeling that you won't ever meet another person like that. It's exciting. Part of it is how a person smells. For me. Is that gross?" He chuckled lightly, squeezing me.

"No, it's not." I felt a weird thrill, actually. He smelled like the campfire, and his usual scent. And something else. "You smell like metal tonight."

"Metal?" I could hear the amusement in his voice, the genuine surprise.

"Yeah, like on a hot summer day when you walk through a parking lot full of cars...and you can smell the hot metal?"

"I do know what you mean. I know exactly what you mean." His whispery voice sounded high and sweet. I imagined his face would be smiling if I could see it. He went on, "It's probably from the welding demo. I showered, I promise! But it gets into the skin."

We were both silent for a moment, and Edward shifted onto his back, pulling me into the crook of his shoulder as he rolled. He hooked my lower legs with his, keeping me warm and close under our blankets.

He breathed into my hair, "You're tired, aren't you? We've had a full day."

"Mmmm. It was a very full day." I draped a heavy arm across his torso, feeling his chest rise and fall gently beneath my drowsy head.

The canopy of stars above us was thick and brilliant. Surrounded by Edward's warm skin, I was reminded of something. "You know, I read once that when they interviewed the astronauts after they came back home, they said outer space smells like burnt metal. Like iron embers. They said their space suits smelled that way when they came back into the airlock. And they said they could taste it on their tongues."

"Ahh, Bella. I never knew that. I remember about the 'sea of tranquility.' Isn't that what they say? Floating." He was barely coherent. His arms tightened around me. I could feel his lips on top of my head. So quiet I could barely hear him, he shaped the words _Bella, Bella _with his mouth against my hair.

We were quiet for another long while. I listened to the gentle wind in the trees. Such tall trees.

"Say something else, Bella. I like the way it feels. I can feel it vibrating in my chest when you speak." His words were slurred with sleepiness now, and I knew he would be drifting off any moment.

My heart began to race, so subtly I barely felt it. I was having a moment, and something needed to be said. I fought back a lump that thickened in my throat.

"Edward. I'm so glad you have that funny metal smell tonight because...I'm going to think of you, you know. I'm going to think of you and this day when I see the stars like this. Always."

He murmured something, a strangled grunt, into my hair. He may have said _I know_. He clutched me tighter for a moment, making us into a tangled ball of warmth and skin and soft clothes. My eyelids were like lead, and I felt whole. Wrapped in Edward's limbs, his breath mingling with the air of the dark, last warm night of the year, on a blanket in the yard of the house where he grew up, I drifted off into a deep and comfortable sleep.

**AN: Site-specific installation art is just art designed to exist in one particular three-dimensional space, keeping in mind the qualities of the site and the frame of mind the viewer might bring when they are in that site. Unlike traditional sculpture, it can't be moved around from museum to museum (at least, not without being re-conceptualized).**

**A big public thank-you to two heretofore strangers, LadyExcalibur2010 who mentioned this story in a chapter of her delightful story, The Bigger They Are...and spanglemaker9, author of The Wedding Party, for tweets and other mentions! *blushing!* Until next week...**


	10. Chapter 9: An Oak Tree made of Thread

**AN: **Finally, some hints as to the weird title of this story - read on! Also: Without really intending to, I've put Edward in an apron for the 3rd time and we're only 9 chapters in (at the honey farm, welding, cooking). What's up with that?

**Playlist **(links are on my profile..._Colors and the Kids_ actually has a role in the action of this chapter):

**Colors and the Kids - Cat Power**

and you could say my name like you know my name

**Chapter 9: An Oak Tree Made of Thread**

I was floating weightlessly, sharing oxygen with Edward in a spacesuit built for two. Our heads nestled together inside a single helmet, whooshing noises drowning out our voices as we plucked marshmallows from branches that kept splitting off into more branches, onward and onward. The whooshing noise grew louder and more intermittent, until it was replaced by an alarming shriek. Then Edward's groaning voice: "Oh, no. I forgot."

And then I was startled awake. As I untangled my hair from my face and got my bearings, the noise continued on. What the hell was that godawful noise? Where was I? I was warm and so comfortable. Edward's voice was in my ear, complaining, apologizing, half laughing. "The fucking rooster. Bella, I'm sorry. He'll shut up in a minute."

My brain was still making sense of the fact that, indeed, a rooster was crowing somewhere nearby, when Edward's hands came up to shield my ears. And then my hands came up to cover his. I turned my body so I was underneath him, framed by his forearms, and all I could see was his mop of hair above me, ringed in coppery wheat from the gentle morning rays, and his eyes. Today the green was tinged with gold. He cupped his hand away from my ear for a moment, leaning in to whisper, "Good morning."

Without a word, I pulled at his shirt collar until he lowered his head a few inches and let his lips brush mine. I closed my eyes for a moment and tried to burn this moment into my memory: waking up with Edward. Outside. His body and mine tangled easily together beneath the covers, the same temperature, like we shared one skin. The quality of the early morning light; the peachy-pinkish sky; the soft, warm heat we had created inside our pocket of blankets; and the cool bright air gently stinging my nose and eyes where I peeked out from the covers. And...the insanely irritating crowing of a rooster ten yards away.

It crossed my mind to make a snarky joke about 'the cock' and how not to provoke it, but just then a wave of sadness overcame me. Looking into Edward's eyes, I saw nothing there that wanted to make light of our situation. I wanted him. I could feel his hardness against my leg. And while I accepted the slow pace he was setting, I did not understand it. Not really. I saw my frustration mirrored in his expression. And some tenderness.

His eyebrow was begging to be smoothed out. Now his other eyebrow. God, his eyelid when it fluttered.

Again and again he seemed about to say something, and ultimately settled on words that told nothing, but spoke volumes nonetheless. "I know." He repeated it, kissing my cheekbone. My earlobe. "I know."

I rolled onto my side, facing him now.

Our faces were so close, it felt like my eyes were crossing to look at him. He drew a thin blanket over our heads so the light barely filtered through, and draped his arm around my waist. "We can sleep more. It's barely dawn."

"Okay." I closed my eyes, sighing. But then I giggled. "Are you telling me that's a working chicken coop out there? With a live rooster and chickens?"

"Yes, ma'am. I'll cook you an omelette. Now go to sleep." And then I did.

~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.

When we finally made our way into the house some time later, the kitchen was crowded with bed-headed cooks and pajama-clad coffee drinkers. The newspaper had already been divided among Rose, Carlisle, Alice, and Esme. A small dog roamed around, sniffing ankles, succeeding in capturing no one's interest. Emmett was sprawled on the floor next to the couch, gently snoring.

Jasper, seeing Edward and I walk in, sized us up and cracked his knuckles theatrically. "Been sleeping on the ground, I see?"

I laughed at his implied offer - - or threat - - of a massage. "Actually, Jasper, I feel pretty great. Can I take a raincheck?"

"You bet."

Edward busied himself with pots and pans, wiggling his eyebrows at me when Alice offered me a shower.

"Bella," she said, "I put some fresh clothes out on the guest bed if you feel like a change. And towels. Go nuts."

When I returned to the kitchen twenty minutes later, almost everyone was done eating. A second pot of coffee was brewing. I had my towel-dried hair in two long braids, and was wearing a loose grey sweatshirt with a cowboy iron-on and some soft black leggings I had found laid out for me. Edward looked at me and turned pink.

"Alice." He said, not bothering to turn in her direction, and not looking away from me. "You are in so much trouble."

Carlisle looked up and chuckled. He muttered under his breath, "Oh, Alice."

Edward's gaze was locked on the cowboy decorating my sweatshirt. I looked down at myself, then up at him. "You like this?"

"Yes. I've always liked it. It's mine." He leaned across the kitchen island to whisper quietly to me, "And it looks good on you."

Ah. I had to laugh. And I had to hand it to Alice. Smoothie.

Alice was whistling innocently, preoccupied with opening and closing cabinets, searching for something.

She placed a clean plate in front of Edward, and he slid a half-moon omelette out of a pan. She whispered, "You can thank me later, Edward." Alice hooked Jasper's elbow and tugged him out of the kitchen after her.

Edward rolled his eyes and handed me the plate. Which smelled delicious.

"You really did cook me an omelette."

"I'm a man of my word, am I not?"

"I'm starting to see that you are." My tone may have been lighthearted, but he held eye contact with me until there was no doubting how serious we both were. I liked this. I liked Edward turning to me for affirmation.

He smiled when I started really devouring the omelette. What was this, goat cheese? "Bella, what's your day like today? I want to make sure to get you back in time."

"Actually, I usually have my senior thesis advisees on Fridays, but they're away at a conference, so I'm free."

"Good."

Why did one word from him have the power to reduce me to a puddle? Was it the delivery? The look in his eye? I drew in a breath of cool air.

Edward eased up a bit. He laughed at himself. "Listen, enjoy your breakfast. Have some coffee. We have all day."

He turned to tidying up the kitchen mess. Rose, seated on a counter stool next to me, took in the scene with a satisfied look on her face. She turned to me. "So, it seems like you had a pretty nice day yesterday?"

"Yeah, Rose. We did. We ate Cuban food at this little secret spot. Then we just went wandering, enjoying the weather. I think we were in those woods just up the hill. We went to see the sunset near that footbridge, do you know it?"

"Edward took you to the footbridge?"

"No, well, near it. We went to this other overlook that was prettier. Apparently there are degrees of sunset acceptability. I'm such a newbie to all this rolling-hills-and-woodland-wonderland business, it's all good to me."

Edward cleared his throat. He was braced against the counter, his arms stiff. "We'll go back. To the bridge. Today, if you're game."

He didn't look up from the counter to meet my eye, or anyone's, but something about his voice told me I wouldn't say no to this. And, after I mumbled my agreement to Edward, something about the falsely casual posture of the rest of the family nudged me to gently change the subject.

Rose bent her head over the crossword, and Carlisle shuffled through his newspaper sections. I changed the subject, asking Esme to tell me about the framed photographs covering the kitchen wall. By the time she got to the cast photo from Edward's fourth grade play, Edward decided to excuse himself. He untied a plain white apron from around his waist and tossed it onto a hook next to the door.

"Mom. I'm sure Bella doesn't need a refresher on the plot points of Macbeth. I'm going to help Alice with something out back, so come find me, okay, babydoll?"

I nodded. Esme resumed talking, but I couldn't hear a thing because my mind was busy playing and replaying the last words out of Edward's mouth as he left the room.

When I snapped out of it, Esme was staring at me with a tiny smirk. "Bella, are you okay?"

I pinched my lips together. "Um, yeah. Did he just call me..._babydoll_?"

"You noticed that, did you?" Rose, too, was looking up from her crossword with surprised amusement.

"Yeah." I was torn between feeling elated by his offhanded term of affection, giggling at his word choice, and feeling sad that such a tiny thing could feel like such a triumph. My eyebrows crumpled.

Esme sighed. Then she said a thing that told me she understood my disquiet. "This is the easiest thing in the world for him, Bella. You'll see. He's making it difficult for himself, but believe me..." Then she repeated herself, with the certainty only a mother can muster. "This...opening his heart...is the easiest, most natural thing in the world for him."

Carlisle's newspaper lay on the floor beside his chair, forgotten. He gazed at his wife with admiration, a faint smile on his lips. The look that passed between them was shockingly full of meaning: warmth, compassion, a sort of pride in their son and in each other. A lifetime of understanding. _So these were Edward's parents._ I felt gratitude then, and an odd sense of relief. A second wave of realization swept over me, hitting me like a tidal wave. An epiphany. _Edward was loved. _

Now it was my turn to put on a falsely casual posture. I concentrated on finishing my breakfast, swallowing emotion with each bite, blinking back tears.

~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.

Esme took a little convincing to allow me to help with the dishes, but she relented when Rose backed up my story about never having a chance to help at Sunday dinners. The cleanup only took a few minutes. I was surprised to hear even Rose and Emmett call Esme and Carlisle _Ma_ and _Pop_. They discussed their plans for the day and the rest of the week, arranging a joint trip to the "big" supermarket in the next town over. Emmett followed Carlisle out to the chicken coop to visit with the birds.

I was itching to go find Edward, but I was curious about this house, the stories it held. The living room off of the kitchen was sunny, filled with bookshelves and comfortable chairs. Scrabble and some other board games were stacked on a low table. I wandered over to take a look at a large quilt that decorated the wall like a tapestry.

The quilt spanned almost the whole width of the wall. It was a riot of brown and greens, anchored by a central image of a solid-looking tree and its roots, branching into the sky and stretching down just as deep into the earth. Topstitching swirled over the surface of the quilt in spirals and curls, like wind. Circling the image of the tree, in arched, looping script above and below the tree, were these words:

_Giving love never depletes or diminishes love.  
A tree branching outward gifts oxygen and shade,  
gathering inward sunlight and new, green brawn.  
Be oak. Be generous.  
Branch up, out. Branch inward. Love strengthens._

"Esme, this quilt is wonderful. Is it a Clearwater Circle quilt?" This was the name of the group who had made Emily's quilts, passing down distinct methods and vocabularies of stitching styles from generation to generation over the years.

"Why, yes, it is. Isn't the needlework just tremendous? So precise and natural. You know the Clearwater Circle?"

"I've been looking at Emily Uley's archive of quilts. A colleague introduced me to her and she invited me to do some exploring."

"Ah, of course. We all feel so lucky that Edward's friend Sam married into that family, because the Clearwaters have become such good friends...of course, we thought it would be Leah he would marry, but Emily is a perfect match for him."

I tried not to let Esme see the gears turning in my head, but her comment made me recall Edward's remark the other day about how Emily, Leah, and Sam had all been through "some unexpected stuff" in their personal lives. I wouldn't have thought twice about the story, but it gave credence to a theory I had been developing about narratives that were hidden in the quilts. The patterns were usually subtle, but Sam and Emily's marriage quilt had shown a marked rift. It was distinctly divided into two very differently colored sections, like "before" and "after" images. To hear Esme tell it, Sam had been with Leah before Emily, and I wondered at the decision to include that history in the marriage quilt, if that design was what it seemed.

Snapping my attention back to the present, I asked Esme to tell me more about this quilt and the tree motif.

"Well, the design is mine. And the text. It's something from the family lore, I guess you could say. Something my father used to say to us when I was growing up. The Circle was taking commissions, so I asked them to make a quilt for me based on some sketches and this little family poem."

She read out loud the words stitched across the quilt. My mind dwelled on the sentiment behind it. _Be oak. Be generous._ It seemed to correspond with the attitude I'd seen displayed by every member of this family. Even Edward, for all his struggle, was full of 'green brawn' and strength.

"And this little red and blue swirl here?" I asked. There was a pale little appliqued circle held by the outermost branches of the tree, like a balloon snagged out of the wind.

"A Clearwater flourish. See how it balances the composition? This is why they are so remarkable. I see different new things in it all the time, even after all these years." Esme was radiant, gazing at her quilt with renewed interest.

"It's beautiful."

"Oh, Bella, we think so too." She turned to me, beaming and mischievous. "Come on, let me show you more of Edward's mortifying childhood portraits down the hall."

~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.

When I finally made my way outdoors to search out Edward, it was as simple as following a trail of music to the rickety-looking outbuilding I had seen the previous night. I passed by the treehouse and tire swing, smiling to remember the photos I'd just seen of Edward and Alice playing and roughhousing in this same yard as children. In the daylight, I could see that the fire pit we had been using was in what must have been the kids' sandbox from earlier days.

Just inside the doorway to the old building was a spacious woodworking shop. I imagined Edward as a younger man cutting wood and assembling sculptures out here. Everything about this place looked lived-in and well used.

My mind wandered back to Charlie at home in Chicago. His small condo was in a six-story red brick building a few blocks from Lake Michigan. Charlie liked it. There was no garden for him to neglect, no gutters to clean out. Major maintenance projects were taken care of by a contractor that the condo association hired. Charlie liked being of use to the little old ladies in the building, helping them with small repair projects once in a while in exchange for casseroles and coffee cakes. In his retirement, he divided his time between reading newspapers and magazines at the library, catching up over weak coffee at the diner with his buddies, and fishing off the pier at the lake. I always insisted that he throw the fish back, because I wasn't confident about the safety of anything living in that water.

He seemed happy in his solitude, and I was happy that he was happy. But how different he was from the Cullens. I couldn't see any of these people living that way. Not even Edward. It was natural for Charlie, but for Edward it just seemed to go against his nature to be alone, to isolate himself.

Where did I belong? Was it in my DNA to live alone and contented like Charlie? Or was I more like Jacob, who was blindly loyal in his affection and wanted nothing more than to pair up with a lifelong soulmate - - two peas in a pod, forever? There had been a time when Jake's worldview appealed to me. And yet, my own affection for him fell short. His idea of constant, unquestioning devotion felt too seamless and idealized to be real, like trying to embrace a polished mannequin. And it didn't excite me. Not like flesh and blood should. There was so much beauty in the human capacity to make mistakes, to recover from failure - - that was what I liked. It was why I chose my field of study. And yet I hadn't been able to find real, living characters in my own life who would reveal the complexity I saw in the lives I researched. Perhaps I hadn't given anyone the chance.

In the next room, voices and music started and stopped, started and stopped. I rounded the corner at the back of the wood shop and found myself in an improvised home dance studio. Polished wood floors stretched from end to end. A wall of mirrors had been cobbled together from what looked like budget Ikea mirrors, and an old upright piano stood in the corner. Alice, Jasper, and Edward were scattered around the room - - Alice in the center of the floor in bare feet and black jersey knit pants and top, Jasper seated on a chair in the far corner, making notations in a book, and Edward at the piano bench. All three were intent on a piece Alice was choreographing.

The music I'd been hearing was Edward playing. I sank onto some cushions near the entryway and watched as Alice worked out choreography to a delicate, tentative, plaintive piano melody. After a few moments, I recognized the tune as Cat Power's _Colors and the Kids_. This had been a favorite ten or twelve years ago, around when I was just starting college.

Edward would repeat a few bars, then string a few together to play a longer passage all the way through, occasionally speaking lyrics to Alice as a reminder, and interjecting questions or comments. He had a page of lyrics scribbled out in front of him, but the music he was playing by ear.

"..._wanna go...January night_...is the tempo alright?"

I was engrossed in watching Alice work out her choreography. She moved back and forth across the floor in movements that were child-like at times, spry and hopeful, then occasionally stumbling and crumpling.

"..._someone...learn from_...you want it to sound unsteady here, right?"

Edward sought my eye and nodded hello to me as he played, but he never took his focus off of Alice. His intensity was there, drawing me in, stirring my blood. As hesitant and cautious as he could be about making decisions, I was starting to see that once he committed to a thing, he was absolutely committed.

"..._meet me down on a sandy beach_..."

When Alice made a new change in what she was doing, Edward would look to Jasper to see if he was getting down the notes, patiently repeating the refrain until both Alice and Jasper seemed ready to move on.

"..._messy hair_...oh really, Alice? Nice edit..."

Edward's comments on Alice's change to the lyrics made me begin to pay closer attention. Her performance must be about a particular person, a particular feeling, I decided.

"..._when we were teenagers_..."

After a while, Edward was playing the entire song from start to finish, wordlessly, as Alice walked herself through the choreography she'd worked it out so far. But then he trailed off, waiting for Alice's attention.

"I'm sorry, Alice, but this is ridiculous." His words rang out in the quiet studio.

Jasper looked up with a start, and Alice's face drew into a worried frown.

"Edward, we don't have to..."

"No, Alice, we _do_ have to. That's just it. Enough with walking on eggshells, okay? I'm going to sing this."

Alice looked at Edward pointedly with her ESP stare. _Siblings,_ I thought. He sighed and nodded his head. "I know." Alice glanced at me with a bashful, apologetic smile. It took me a moment to understand why: she thought this was something Edward might not mean for me to see.

"Alice. This is about me. There." _Thrummm thrum._ He punctuated his words with a few lighthearted pokes at the piano keys. "So, won't you feel it more if it's my voice singing it? You don't need to be trying to remember lyrics while you dance. Just feel it."

"Are you sure about this, E?"

He sighed. "Alice, who am I?"

"You're my brother."

"And?"

"And you're fair game."

"That's right." _Thrum, tink, thrum._ His fingers bounced on the keys impatiently. "This might be about me, but it's your experience. So it belongs to you. Alice, I love you, and I'm proud of you. What do we always say?"

She took a deep breath. "If it's true, it's beautiful."

_Tink._ _Right answer._ "Now...you're a dancer. Dance."

_Thrum Thrum._

And she danced. And Edward sang. And I watched.

_It must be the colors...and the kids...that keep me alive  
Cause the music is boring me to death  
It must just be the colors...and the kids...that keep me alive  
'Cause I'd wanna go right away to a January night  
_

_I built a shack with an old friend  
He was someone I could learn from, someone I could become  
Will you meet me down on a sandy beach  
We can roll up our jeans so the tide won't get us below the knees  
_

_Messy hair, you are a funny bear  
Messy hair, you are such a funny bear  
Slender fingers would hold me...slender limbs would hold me  
And you could say my name...like you knew my name  
I could stay here...become someone different  
I could stay here...become someone better  
_

_It's so hard to go in the city  
'Cause you wanna say hello to everybody  
It's so hard to go into the city  
'Cause you wanna say hey I love you to everybody  
_

_When we were teenagers we wanted to be the sky  
Now all you wanna do is go to red places...and try to stay outta hell  
_

_It must be the colors...and the kids...that keep me alive  
'Cause the music is boring me to death  
It must just be the colors...and it must just be the kids  
That keep me alive on this January night... _

His voice broke in all the right places, and whispered to suggest failure, and rose and fell playfully, and creaked with a memory of hope. He was pleading in some places, swelling with certainty at others. But the revelation that Edward could sing was all but lost on me, because all the while I was riveted to the story Alice told with her body, a story of childhood adoration and bewildering change, of defeat and melancholy, finally turning to empathy and patience. She finished the dance with her back turned to the piano bench, silently and precisely mimicking his stroking of the keys with the movements of her own feet, as if an invisible cord tied his wrists to her limbs.

I was glad to be sitting on my pile of floor cushions, because I would have wound up collapsing here by now.

Edward was speaking to Jasper. "Okay? Are we good?" Jasper gave his okay, flipping his notebook closed. The day's choreography work was done.

Alice draped her arms over Edward's shoulders from behind, dropping her head to kiss the top of his hair, even wiping a few tears off while she was there. He spun around on the bench, grasping her waist in a tight hug, whispering something in her ear, his face clouded with emotion. She nodded her head, squeezing her eyes shut. I looked down at my feet, suddenly self-conscious to be intruding on their moment.

And then Edward was lifting Alice off of her feet like she didn't weigh a thing, sweeping across the room with her to deposit her in Jasper's lap. He approached me with a bashful smile.

"I'm glad you're here. I'm ready for some alone time."

"Oh. Did you want to take me home, then?" I forced myself to smile politely.

"No, I mean, I'm ready for some alone time with you."

"Oh!" A smile - - a real one - - broke across my face. I couldn't help it. And now his smile was brighter. And now we were playing smile poker. _I see your incisors. And I raise you two molars._

He gestured with a nod of his head to the outside door at the far wall of the studio, and we walked out together.

We crossed the wide back yard, heading for the trees in the distance, and walked for a while in the crispy fall air. The warmth from the previous day was disappearing, but the day was still comfortable. Edward's hand in mine was warm.

"So, were you okay alone in there? Did my mother traumatize you?"

"No. She was perfectly welcoming. She couldn't have been more pleased to show me pictures of you in a bubble bath."

"Ah. Well, I do love a good bubble bath."

Christ. I rolled my eyes. "Thank you for that visual, Edward."

"Of course, I am a bigger boy now. I require way more suds. Way more."

Now I just stopped walking altogether. He was enjoying this too much.

He turned back with his impish grin. "I'm sorry, am I teasing you?"

I tried to glare at him, but honestly, with the way his eyes were dancing, I was defenseless. "Just come here."

We were in the woods by now. Edward inched closer and put his hands on my hips. He drew me in, his thumbs grazing the waistband of my leggings under the grey sweatshirt. When he leaned down to kiss me, he edged his hands inside the shirt under the fabric, moving them up along the small of my back, passing over my bra strap to my shoulder blades and back down again. His tongue and lips met mine with more urgency now, more insistence. I could physically feel him losing control bit by bit...then reeling it in again. He was driving me crazy. He spoke, moving his lips against my mouth in the way I liked so much."Uhh, Bella, your skin is so soft. Fuck." He eased up a bit, checking himself.

"Can I keep my hands warm in here?" He laughed. His hands felt nice. I leaned into his chest and felt the warmth of his forearms against my back, his calloused hands hooking my shoulder blades, tracing their shape. "When I was a kid and this sweatshirt was brand new, I used to pull my arms all the way inside and keep them there because the fleece was so new and soft. But your skin is softer than that."

All this talk of hands inside shirts made me realize my own hands were getting cold. I tugged at his shirttails, shoving them aside. "Can I..." I started. He didn't make a sound.

He reacted to my cold hands with a hiss, but didn't shrink away. "It's okay, it's okay. They'll warm up. God that feels good." And it did feel good. His back was wide and smooth, his shoulders yoked with those mysterious muscles that only men seem to have. And hot skin. His breath was coming faster now as his lips left a line of hot, wet kisses across my throat. He sank down to his knees, pulling me along with him, until he was sitting on his own heels and I was straddling his lap, attacking his mouth and face with mine. He interrupted himself from time to time with a running commentary that I had to admit I liked.

"I forgot how great kissing can be..."

"...Actually, I lied, I've always loved kissing..."

"...But I love kissing you so much. So much, Bella..."

He was killing me with this.

And then the instructions started.

"Kiss my neck again. Just like that. Again." Uhh. How certain he sounded. How satisfied, how wrapped up in feeling.

"I love when you use your teeth like that. Harder. You won't leave a mark. Oh, fuck, yes." I was at his throat, the notch of his jaw.

"Uhn, Bella. Does this feel good? Do you like this?" His jaw was scruffy from not shaving and he was dragging his stubble across the underside of my jaw. I did like this, more than I probably should.

"Edward, yes. God. Yes. Now my, um, earlobe."

He let out a sharp pant, a combination of relief and excitement. "Right, Bella. Here? Like this?" Whispering. His mouth was next to my ear.

"Eeh." Indescribable noises were escaping me now. And I was hot. Every girl has a point of no return, and I was getting there. Time to send up a flag.

I stiffened ever so slightly. "Edward, I think..."

His head jolted up and his eyes found mine in a split second. "What...are you..." He looked at me, slightly stunned.

"If you keep kissing me like that, Edward...and these leggings are thin, so...I think we should...stop?"

He looked down at my legs and rolled his head back up again, grimacing and biting the corner of his lip, laughing slightly. A predicament.

My back was sweating, and it was quickly turning to a cold sweat as my body cooled ever so slightly. Edward noticed it when I did. I waited for him to take his hands out, maybe wipe them on his jeans. But that's not what he did. Instead, he trailed his thumb down my spine, feeling the slickness, following a bead of sweat. He raised his hand to my mouth and wet my lips with the moisture on his thumb.

I closed my eyes. "Now kiss me."

And he did. Gently, tenderly. Silently, I counted my heartbeats, waiting for them to slow as he held me securely in his arms, waiting patiently for the charge in the air to dissipate.

~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.

Somehow, we managed to recover our senses, straightened our disheveled selves up, and resumed walking.

After a while, Edward cleared his throat. "Bella, Alice's dance..."

"Oh, I meant to say - - it was amazing."

"Thank you." He was quiet for a minute. "It's just...I wanted to explain. Alice has gone through a lot of shit with me recently...and now she thinks I'm going to leave Clearwater."

I realized he was watching my face as we walked. And I realized I was waiting for him to continue, to deny that Alice was right. But he didn't do any such thing.

Now I slowed my pace. I looked at Edward, searching his eyes.

"Bella, listen...I'm going to Minneapolis for a two-week artist-in-residency gig. I leave in a week. It's not a job interview, I promise it's not...but to be totally honest...it's a precursor to a job interview." He had stopped walking altogether. We were out of the patch of forest now, in a new clearing that I recognized as the hilltop near that footbridge. "I set it up before I met you, obviously. The idea was if I liked the work and the community, I would begin talking to the people up there about a job for next year."

Next year. That was still ages from now. But, then again, it was no time at all. I didn't like this. I began walking toward the bridge, pulling Edward by his hand. He walked with me a few paces, but as I got closer to the mouth of the bridge, he stopped again. He was anchored to a patch of dead, brittle grass.

"Please, Bella. I can't." He drew me back to where he stood. "The thing is...I thought...my family thought...it might be healthy for me to start over in a place where I'm not surrounded by so much history, so many reminders."

He sank to the ground, pulling me with him. He rested his forehead on mine for a moment, then tugged the elastics off of my braids, unravelling them with his fingers until this hands nestled in my hair. He breathed in deeply, burying his face in my hair.

Somehow, this felt more intimate than I expected. More primal. I felt myself shaking, caught off guard. "Is this a reminder, too? What is it, I used the shampoo from your childhood? Is that it?"

"No, Bella. It's just you. You smell like you. Different."

I nudged Edward to lay on his back on the grass and I hovered over him, propped up on my forearms. My hair fell like a curtain, like I could block off the rest of the world from his view.

He stroked the side of my face. "You know...the day you sat next to me in the faculty meeting...you looked at me in a way no one had looked at me in years. You looked me in the eye, Bella, with no expectations, no preconceived judgment about who I was and what I was about. I thought I would have to leave this town to feel that way again, and then you sat down. And then...when I actually met you..." He trailed off, uncertain how to continue. He furrowed his brow.

"Edward, talk to me. I know there's something you want to tell me. There's something, isn't there? Something about that bridge?"

His hands trailed up and down my back, comforting both of us.

"That bridge is where I feel it the worst, Bella. It's the worst reminder of them all. I thought I could take you here and tell you...everything. Just...I don't want to lose the way you look at me." As if to prove his point, his eyes blazed into mine, really _seeing_ me the way he always did. I didn't want to lose that either.

Esme's words from this morning echoed in my head: _Be oak. Be generous. Branch up, out. Branch inward. _Did any part of that describe me? "What is there to tell, Edward? Just spit it out."

And then he did. It wasn't a long, involved story, though I had a feeling such a thing would come eventually. It was just a few simple words.

"Someone I care about died there. I might have stopped it, but I didn't." His eyes never left my face, vigilant, watching my reaction.

"So she's gone, and I'm here. And I'm responsible." His voice was reduced to a whisper. "I'm responsible."

This was it, then. This wasn't the whole story, but this was the crux of it. Tanya. It had to be her. I circled my arm around his shoulder and pulled myself closer to him. This time it was me listening for his heart, his breath. I shut down the tiny, doubtful voice that piped up inside of me and decided to channel my inner oak tree.

~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.

**AN: (*These are slightly altered lyrics, as Alice edited them.) I know, I know, everybody is getting so emo! Edward just needed to get some things off his chest, he'll be back to his usual impish self next chapter. Thanks for reading, please post your reactions and reviews! **


	11. Chapter 10: A Catalog of What Feels Good

**Twilight is the property of Stephenie Meyer. So are the Twilight characters. Other artists and musicians are cited in the text, and everything else is my original work.**

**AN: Some call it fluff, I call it stealth character development. Everyone wins. Pics to help visualize Edward's place, songs, etc., are on my profile. **

**Playlist: Transatlanticism by Death Cab for Cutie**

**Chapter 10: The Edward Cullen Catalog of What Feels Good**

My little house was overdue for some cleaning. I had so few belongings and pieces of furniture, it didn't take long to dust and tidy things up. I cleaned old leftovers out of the fridge. I took out the trash and recycling, and scrubbed the sinks with Comet. Then it was time to tackle the closets. I had plans to travel to Columbus with Alice and Rose in a week or so while Edward was away in Minneapolis, and I figured I should pick up a winter coat while we were there. My closet check told me I could use some sweaters, too.

But that was still a ways away. The truth was, I was looking for ways to distract myself from work. I wanted to do anything but work. Every time I turned to the Dear Government Documents archives, I found myself reflexively assigning names and sometimes faces to the anonymous writers of the letters. When I read about a grieving young woman who had lost her best friend in an accident, I wondered if the person she described was Tanya. Or the one who wrote about getting a restraining order against a violent ex…that didn't sound like Edward, but maybe there was someone else in Tanya's past? Or…a distraught man whose girlfriend had miscarried: I imagined Edward.

It was driving me crazy, and not just because of the idea of Edward or even Tanya, a stranger in my eyes, going through these traumas. I hated that I was compelled to try to circumvent the anonymity that was so important to these letter writers. And then there was the matter of Edward's privacy. He would tell me more when he was ready. I had studied this subject enough to know that when people kept information to themselves, it was for a reason. Trust couldn't be rushed.

The sky outside my windows was low, a layer of gray mist descending on the town. Not quite frost. A wet fog.

I sank onto the couch, picking up a magazine from the table, then tossing it down again just as quickly. This wasn't working. I peered out the window, willing Edward to show up early.

In the week or so since our never-ending date, we had established a nice rhythm of getting together with each other or the group every couple of nights for dinner, spending the days solo, working and teaching. We were getting to know one another, and he was making tentative steps toward re-acclimating to his own family. Slowly. So slowly. And now we had plans to spend the rest of the day together, before his departure to Minneapolis.

It still gave me a thrill to see his face appear at my door, or to recognize his far-away form loping on long legs toward my house from down the street. And when he pulled his Volvo into Alice's driveway, finally, I felt that familiar rush of excitement. I threw open the door and took a step back, to take in the visual and to let him sidle past me, then I moved in for a shy hello kiss. I was still getting used to this. Still getting a feel for his comfort zone. And mine. His skin was cool and dewy from the foggy air, and flushed from within.

Edward blinked and smiled, his eyes lingering on my face for a beat. "So, what's happening here?" He made a show of examining my newly clean house, theatrically wiping his finger along the coffee table and inspecting it, as if checking for dust.

I couldn't help but laugh. "Shut up. I'm not that terrible a housekeeper."

"No, you're not. But you've clearly been cleaning." He reached out to stroke my arm, like he knew he had ruffled my feathers and was smoothing them down. "Something going on?"

Not beating around the bush, this one. It startled me, how quickly he could make inferences from a quick scan of a room. He reminded me of Charlie in that way. Always alert.

"Oh, I can't seem to get any actual work done." I tugged at my shirt cuffs, standing awkwardly in the middle of the living room. Edward, leaning against the hutch, reached out and claimed my wrists, stroking the backs of my hands with his thumbs. He had a way of silently watching my face, waiting patiently for me to get to my real point.

"It's just...these letters...they aren't like the diaries, you know? Diaries are all about dreams and fantasies, and venting every type of feeling in the world. There's at least a balance to it. But the 'Government' letters—it's all bad news."

He nodded. Wheels were turning behind his eyes.

"And people who don't know where else to turn. It seems so lonely, and I just keep thinking about people's lives changing. How alone they must have felt." I rolled my eyes to the ceiling and shook my head, still agitated and wanting to change the subject already.

"Right. That sounds like something that's best taken in small doses."

He pulled me to him. "Come. We don't have to talk about it. Not this minute."

He started massaging my shoulders and upper arms heavily, really kneading them. It felt good.

"I could easily stand here and do this all day, but we have an agenda. Should we get going?"

~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~

Once we were settled in my truck, I glanced over at Edward. He wore a thin sweater over a tee shirt today, a departure from his usual flannel button-down. Mossy green. It looked like cashmere.

"See something you like?"

I realized I was blatantly staring.

I giggled. "Maybe I can't help myself. I like that sweater on you."

He smirked. "Eyes on the road, Swan."

I was behind the wheel today. Edward was leaving his Volvo for Alice and Jasper to use, and he was planning to ride with Sam to the airport late tonight. I'd offered to drive him, but he had claimed Sam had some of his own business in Cleveland. And he'd suggested that I'd probably be too exhausted for the long drive anyhow.

I blushed, remembering his comment and my interpretation of it.

"What are you thinking of right now? What's making you blush?" God, this man could make me talk about anything. _Inhibitions? What are those?_

I swallowed. "Yesterday, when you promised I'd be too exhausted to drive."

"I didn't promise. I suggested." He was suppressing a smile. "And, as I said yesterday, I plan on exhausting you every which way…eventually. But you know I'm not going to sleep with you and then go out of town for two weeks. I would lose my mind."

He leaned in, raking his eyes over my body before whispering, "And you would, too."

I shivered, then rolled my eyes. "You can't say things like that to me! Not while I'm driving."

"Pfft, it's a slow country road. I'm making a mental image of you blushing like this. It turns me on, I can't help it. It's going to be a long two weeks."

Well, that just added fuel to the fire, and I felt my face burn. I wanted to close my eyes and imagine him alone, taking himself in his hand, thinking of me. What would his face look like? But I was driving. I blinked. Multiple times.

"Jesus, Edward."

"Hey. Okay." He put his hand on mine, cool and still, a wordless agreement to dial down the tension. "Turn right here."

As we pulled up the long driveway, I recognized the plain, handsome round barn from the day Edward picked up equipment here, on our way to Sam's farm. I sat and waited for Edward to retrieve tools or whatever, gazing out at the way the wind and mid-afternoon shadows danced in the little meadow beyond the barn. I was startled by a knock on my window. Edward.

His voice was muffled by the car window. "You coming?"

"Oh! Are we stopping here?"

I scrambled out of the car, sucking in cold air and clutching my cardigan closed. Edward led me to a door at the side of the barn.

"What is this place?"

"This place, Bella..." he grinned, "is my home."

I gaped at him. "You live in a barn?" I looked around again, bewildered.

"I do." His eyes and mouth crinkled in unison, amused.

Eyes wide, I followed Edward through the door and up an insulated staircase. When Alice told me Edward had withdrawn from society, I never imagined this. I realized I had stopped breathing, subconsciously preparing myself for the smell of a barn. But now that I thought about it, it didn't smell like a barn. Not at all. It smelled like...Edward.

He fiddled with keys and let us in through a second door at the top of the stairs. And then my jaw really dropped open.

The space—the loft, I guess—was nothing at all like the rustic facade suggested. It was full of light, space, and gleaming wood. It seemed to be one huge room, broken up by unfussy modern furniture and occasional load-bearing beams. The high ceiling vaulted upward toward a peak in the center. Walls of whitewashed wood circled the perimeter, with a stretch of exposed brick near the modern white lacquer kitchen. It was beautiful. I was stunned.

Edward scoffed lightly at my reaction.

"I am an artist, you know," he teased. "I care about how things look and feel. Did you really think I would be living in an unfinished barn?"

I had no answer for that. I took in Edward's bed at the far end of the space. It was big, white, clean. Both luxurious and no-nonsense at the same time. The living room area was defined by a couple of low, deep couches, a bunch of floor cushions, an old fashioned record player, and a small, old television. Tidy stacks of records and books rested on the floor. Between the living room and the bed were a gas fireplace and bathtub. A freestanding bathtub. Just hanging out there, in the middle of the room.

He was watching me react to his space, amused. "I told you how much I like my bubble bath, didn't I? I don't joke about such things."

"But…don't you…" I didn't even know how to finish my question. My brain was filled with the word _naked _spelled out in blinking neon lights.

He shrugged. "I like to listen to records in the bath."

I looked at him, nodding, my eyes glazed over.

"I have a separate shower. For everyday." He gestured with a nod of his head toward a curving tile wall at the very back that separated the rest of the space from what could only be the shower and bathroom.

"And anyhow, I don't have guests over all that often." He began leading me around. "Esme helped me with some design choices. It's not strict historic preservation, obviously…but keeping the original frame is more eco-friendly than tearing down, and we insulated the hell out of it.

"The floor below is a lot of wide open storage, which was why I chose it in the first place. It's easy to move my work in and out. I have a small studio down there, but I don't do anything that involves volatile materials here. Just small-scale studies, that type of thing."

I realized the space was remarkably warm, for being so open and airy. It was unconventional, but not uncomfortable. Sophisticated masculine elements were sprinkled throughout the space - - cast iron antlers as a coat rack (or bath towel rack, I guess), industrial light fixtures, rugged textures of stone and textiles here and there. Even the potted plants had a wildness to them.

Edward had stopped in his tracks in front of the cushy sofa. He pulled me to sit down with him. "So, what do you think?"

"About what?"

"About this place. Do you like it?"

"It seems to suit you. Yes, I like it." I could see that this was his home. I could see how he would feel easy in this space. "Thanks for bringing me here."

"Well, I have an ulterior motive. A few. First of all, I thought we could cook together. An early dinner. Have some nice alone time together." I nodded. That was a no-brainer.

"And…I was hoping I could get you to water my plants while I'm gone. Bring in the mail." I blinked at him, making no effort to hide my surprise. He simply nodded and held up a key for me. "Every three days would be enough, but feel free to come and go. Make yourself at home."

"Of course I will. I'd be happy to." I clenched the key in my palm.

"Also…I wanted to show you that I have roots here." He looked around. "I…I thought you might be anxious about this Minneapolis thing, and I want you to know I don't plan on just uprooting on a whim. I don't plan on uprooting at all right now. My family is here. My home, my life. You're here."

"Yeah." I hadn't been aware of any anxiety, but I felt myself breathe a sigh of relief. "Um. I appreciate that."

"Well, I just hope this puts your mind at ease a little." He spread his hands out on my knees, tapping his fingers. "But I can see it's not working."

He could? What did he see, I wondered?

"So. I can see I'm going to have to pull out the big guns. What's your relaxation of choice: Scalp massage? Tea? Sparkling conversation?"

He was teasing, but it occurred to me that he always seemed to know how to be comforted, somehow. I recalled the way he unraveled my braids and buried his face in my hair when we were in the field near the footbridge.

Even now, he seemed to comfort himself with this physical contact, as much as I welcomed it. A palpable feeling of contentment was rolling off of him in waves. "Bella, what is it?" He could see that I was pensive.

"Well..." I fidgeted with the stack of records on his rustic wood coffee table, lining the spines up in a straight line. "How do you always know what you need? I mean, how do you know what will feel good to you? It's like you're able to flip through a mental catalog of things that feel good." This was embarrassing, admitting I sometimes felt uneasy in my own body. I tugged my hair away from my forehead and snuck a peek at Edward.

"I like the idea of it. A catalog. But I guess I don't think about it. I never have thought about it. I go more by instinct, see." A smile crept across his face. It was meant to disarm me.

"Hmm. Let's start with this. This..." He leaned his chest into my back and wrapped his upper body around mine, tight, grasping his forearms around mine. His chin moved against my shoulder. "This is your basic, standard-issue, beginner's bear hug. It's like aspirin. All-purpose pain killer. It comes free with any catalog order, everyone should have one in the pantry."

I laughed. "Come on. Don't hold back. I'm not an _absolute_ beginner."

He lay back on the couch, taking me with him and maneuvering until I was lying on top of him face down, my head nestled under his chin, his arms belting me. "This is the supine variation. It's very advanced. Don't try it without my supervision."

It felt strange, letting myself be the object of someone's affection. Needing it. Admitting it. But if I could just stop thinking about it...I relaxed. Bit by bit. He drew circles on my back. I let the full weight of my body rest on him.

"Of course, this is an imperfect demonstration. I was working in the studio today, and I might smell a little bit like armpit," he joked.

"No, you don't." I welcomed the excuse to really breathe him in. The soft cashmere, the soft skin. "Well, maybe a little. But I don't mind when you smell like sweat. It's clean sweat."

He hummed and rolled me tighter in his arms, pressing his lips to the top of my head. "How do you do that?"

"What? Do what?"

"You say exactly what you're thinking, even if it isn't the conventionally polite thing to say…you make me feel like myself, and good, at the same time. It feels good that you tell me the truth." He reared back, craning his neck to see my face. I couldn't hide the grin on my face. "It seems like a little thing, but it means a lot to me. You have no idea."

I thought about this a moment. He was speaking lightly, naturally, but he was also dropping a trail of crumbs for me. Clues. Little windows opening into the shadowy reaches. I tried to do my part, open up a little in return.

"I guess I know how it feels when someone only wants to hear the good. That's not for me. I need to be able to speak my mind, or nothing will work. So…it means a lot to me that you're willing to hear it."

"Well then, I guess I don't need to ask you to keep doing it."

He braided his fingers through mine and stretched my arms out like a wingspan, then up above my head. Then he trapped my ankle between his wooly-socked feet and gave my leg some traction, stretching it long. First one, then the other. It felt nice. "I learned that from Jasper."

I snickered. I couldn't help the visuals that sprang to mind.

"Swan. Behave. He does it to Alice." He placed my hands onto his waist, feeding my fingertips toward where they wanted to go, under the edges of his tee shirt hem. He took in a slow, seething breath when I began exploring his smooth skin, the muscles tensing beneath. I thought of the word _flank_. An underappreciated area.

"Here's something Jasper didn't teach me." He began a slow migration of his lips from where they rested at hairline down to my jawline and mouth. His whispers reached my ears while I felt the breath of his words float across my own lips. "No one taught me this. I figured this out all on my own."

"Did you, now?"

"Mmm. I just decided to see if it would feel good. And it did. It does." He cupped my face with both of his hands, passing dry calloused warmth through my skin, brushing my hair back.

"And this…you taught me this." He dragged his lower lip and the ridge of his teeth over the hot pulse in my neck, triggering it to race faster. My low back arched involuntarily, my hips seeking to find leverage against his. "You taught me this by the way you respond to me."

I had to admit to myself this made sense. As much sense as anything was making at this point in time, with Edward's lips attached to my neck.

"It's a magnet now." He placed his thumb on the spot gently, as if marking it in his memory. He relocated his lips to mine, slow, soft, lingering. "It goes into the catalog."

"Because it's not the only one. It's just the first of…" He kissed my ear, my hairline.

"…seven or eight…" Now the corner of my eye, now my eyelid.

"..hundred or so…" Suddenly hands were involved. My shirt shifted and I felt the smooth pads of his thumbs trace along the line of my bra strap. Pinky fingers outlining the shape of my scapulae.

"…and we're going to find them all, Bella." His voice was low and guttural, unhurried, never wavering. "One at a time."

I felt my breath escape me, a low groan. Imagining. His lips pulled up into a self-satisfied smile.

"That's one, too. Anticipation. You like to hear what I'm going to do, don't you." His voice was rougher now.

I nodded and eked out incoherent words, my throat dry. "Uhhn. Hhahh. Yes. I do."

"And sometimes you like to be surprised."

"That too." I blushed at the sound of my own throaty whisper, my voice breaking.

"And you'll always tell me when it isn't what you want. When I should do something different. Slower. Harder. Anything."

All of those things sounded good to me. "Everything. Of course."

And then he was finished talking, his lips and hands moving with frantic energy, fueled by candor, his tight rein relaxing. I rose up on my elbows, framing his head with my forearms and curtain of hair sweeping down. He found new homes for his hands on my waist, grasping, tilting my hips. I wanted more. I lowered back onto him, trailing my breasts along his torso as his knee came up between my legs. I grunted softly, biting my lip, until his mouth replaced mine, sucking, laughing gently. I pressed back into his leg, searching for the seam of my jeans. Jesus, his thigh was made of muscle. Of course it was. I knew that. But now I _knew_ that. His hands on my ass held me in place, knowing what I was doing, encouraging, making me buck. Ever so gently.

He lifted his head and shoulders up off the couch, reflexes firing, a swimmer gasping for water. "Yes." The sound of his voice, desperate and unchecked, sent shivers through my spine, and I rocked again. "God, Bella, I can't wait to make you come." I took a gamble on looking into his face, silently querying whether to take that as a request. No time like the present. His eyebrows raised.

And his stomach growled.

I collapsed onto him, grimacing. He held me in place, whispering "_Forget it, that was your imagination, nothing happened, I'm not hungry_."

I rose up, straightening my arms. "We planned to cook together, didn't we? Come on. You should hold me to it."

"I'll hold you to it, all right." He eased himself up, grumbling. "One of these days."

~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.

Twenty minutes later, he was silent as we stood side by side in his gleaming white kitchen, watching grilled cheese sandwiches smolder. Rather, he was observing my silence. He swept my hair aside and planted a soft kiss on my neck. "Is my distraction wearing off? You're thinking about your archives again, it looks like."

I shrugged.

The urge to sweep my troubles under the carpet was strong. But I reminded myself that I was trying to build some trust with him. It was a two-way street. If I wanted him to open up to me eventually, well…"Maybe you should make me talk, Edward. The truth is, I spent all morning distracting myself, long before you came to pick me up. Maybe you can help me by, you know, pushing me a little bit."

His voice was soft. "Oh. Okay." He cleared his throat gently. "So, tell me what you were reading when you were trying to work. The letters."

"Well…this morning…" I stirred a pan of tomato soup on the stove, contemplating how to describe this. "There's this whole group of letters that have to do with infertility problems. It's all laid out so plainly that these couples feel they can't talk to each other. Like, the wife will refuse to tell the husband that she knows medically he is the infertile one…she'll even go on for months with the ruse of injecting herself with hormones as if she's the one who can't conceive. I mean, what is a person supposed to do in that situation?"

His hand came up to stroke my middle back, absently now, like he was distracted, thinking. "When is a lie justified? Is that the question?" He stood behind me, circling my waist with his arms.

"I guess. Based on these letters, some people seem to feel they have no choice but to lie. I don't think they feel right doing it, but they _need_ to do it. It seems like failure to me. Weakness. But it could also be a sort of generosity, protecting someone from pain. What do you think?"

I looked up at him.

He gave a sad little snort. "I think a little part of you would die, realizing the truth is too much for your partner. Isn't that the whole point of love - - to really know a person and accept them, for a person to know everything about you and still accept you?" He shuddered. "But I'm no judge of other people. I can't imagine what they might go through. And just because I can't personally imagine a situation…"

He trailed off, then started anew with a different approach. My mind was still reeling from hearing him talk with such conviction about love, like he'd put a lot of thought into it.

"You know, my mom and dad couldn't have their own children. Carlisle and Esme. They knew it from the time they met. I know they struggled with predicting how it would affect them, if they never had a family. I believe it was the only real threat to their relationship."

Having met them, having seen them surrounded by their grown family…Carlisle and Esme without children would have been tragic. I recalled the portraits hanging above Alice and Jasper's mantle. A marriage, a son, a daughter. _Instant family_ was Alice's phrase.

As if his own mind was mulling over that same triptych, he went on, "But they discussed it openly, and dealt with it together. And anyhow, they didn't have to wonder and worry for long."

"They were lucky." I had seen the joy in their faces in those family portraits, instant or no.

"I was lucky." The words burst out from him in a single breath. I could feel his chest constrict behind me, soundlessly, a swell of private feeling. "I've been lucky my entire life. Most of my life." Sorrow laced his low, breathy voice now. This was no celebratory boast. It was a plea to the universe, a promise to tread lightly around luck that could change on a dime.

"I'll tell you what I would want. I know this isn't why you brought it up, but Bella, I would want to know the truth. No matter what it is."

His voice was choked with emotion, and the plainness of his words caught me off guard. I slowed my stirring. Was this what I was really searching for? Someone who could hear the worst from me and not turn his back? Not only that. Someone who _knew_ the lows were coming, just like the highs, someone who prepared for it like a survivalist stockpiling rations of compassion and understanding. Someone trained in using those tools. Once again, hope bubbled up in me.

Now he turned me to face him. His expression was so serious. I longed to tell him he could open up to me as well, but I realized that's what he was doing now. He was telling me his truth, in a way. And I needed to hear him. "I'll remember, Edward."

He smoothed the hair away from my brow, searching my eyes. "You won't need to remember. It's important to me. You'll know, okay? You'll know it every day. You can come to me with anything." And with that, he took the spatula from my hand and flipped our sandwiches with an air of certainty that seared the edges of my heart.

~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~

When we left Edward's a while later, the sun was starting to set. He had me drive to a parking lot adjacent to the health rehab center that was near his latest installation site.

"I want to show you where I'm working these days." He glanced at me. "It won't be much to see, nothing's finished, but at least you can see the space."

As we walked through a grassy field toward the forest beyond, I asked him to tell me about his work. He seemed slightly less reluctant than before.

"Well, it's changing. Most of it is in the form of large scale site-specific installations."

"Like Richard Serra, that type of stuff?"

"Serra is great. That's the category, yes. Maybe some similarities in the sense of shaping your experience of a space. But otherwise his work is nothing like mine. You'll see something of mine in Columbus, actually." The art museum in Columbus was on the list for when Rose and Alice and I were going. I smiled, an excited flutter in my chest.

"I wish you could be with me when I see it."

His eyes bulged. "Well, there are pros and cons."

I waited for him to elaborate.

"Whenever I finish any project, I start mentally rebuilding and revising it in my mind. I don't always love revisiting early projects."

"Ah." Our path, winding through the forest, eventually opened up onto a curious cluster of buildings.

The site included a row of long-abandoned corrugated metal grain silos and a large rectangular building that had once been a commodities trading post. There were no longer any roads leading to and from it, just the footpath we had taken. It was eerie. I was starting to see why Edward had chosen the site, though it was hard to imagine just what he would create here.

"The college used this trading post as a hockey and basketball rink back in the 60s. Then after the new athletic center was built, they got rid of the roads and returned the land to its natural habitat. They left the structures here with the thought of converting it to an artist's retreat one day. And now it's mine to use for a year."

He walked us inside a silo, pointing out the openings and windows high above us that would filter light down on a sunny winter day. "I might open up a crevice along the wall here. I'm still working out how I want the light to interact with the piece."

Next we wandered into the rectangular building, and I looked up in surprise to see that the roof had been removed. Edward lit up at my reaction. "It's site specific, and it's also weather specific. The show will stay up during the coldest part of winter. I expect snow, but no rain."

"This is cool. It's like these four walls are sort of…a frame for the sky." He nodded his head vigorously. It was fun to see him showing his enthusiasm.

I threw my head back, gazing up at the exposed sky. It was opaque with cloud cover.

"I'll install most of it during November and December, saving the most sensitive materials for last."

As if on cue, a raindrop fell onto the ground beside us. Just one. We watched as it stained the dry, tamped-down dirt. And then the clouds opened up and we were soaked in an instant.

"Back to the truck. Let's run."

Running was an optimistic idea. Wet leaves and dirt, then prairie grasses, slapped at my legs. Muddy puddles sucked on my shoes, slowing me. I felt ridiculous. Edward wasn't faring much better. After a few moments, we slowed to a fast walk, both of us dripping, cackling. I took his hand in mine and braced him close to me like a human rain shield. Before long, the glowing frame of the health rehab center appeared before us, and the silhouette of my truck.

Once we hit the pavement of the parking lot, the sloshy squeak of both our shoes made us laugh. Ours was the only car in the lot. Edward looked at the center, then back to me.

"Hey. This is where Jasper works. There's a laundry where we can dry these clothes, and we can hang out in the therapy pool while we wait." He looked at me. "Or we can just get in the car and drive home, cold and wet."

A fat drop of water rolled off of his drenched hair, landing on his lip. He flicked it away. I chose the pool. "Can we even get in?"

"I have the code to Jasper's office." Of course he did. "And his keys are in there."

Our faculty badges allowed us into the building itself, then we retrieved Jasper's key ring. Before long Edward had located the laundry and locker room off of the pool. It smelled like chlorine and musty air, and I was taken back to my high school P.E. days. This adventure felt like the sort of mischief my much younger self would have attempted.

Behind a stall door in the locker room, I peeled off my soaking jeans, cardigan and shirt and stood shivering in my bra and underwear, covered in goose bumps. I handed the wet clothes up to Edward's waiting hand, hovering above the door, and he passed his relatively dry tee-shirt over the wall to me. He had been wearing a sensible coat, whereas I had worn nothing over my cardigan.

"You can cover up with this. I'll go throw our clothes in the dryer and meet you in the pool." _Our clothes_. Why was that the thing that made my blood rush to my ears? I pulled Edward's shirt over my head - - it was still warm from his body - - and crept out of the stall on tiptoes, cringing at the cold tile. The shirt fell halfway to my knees.

I swung open the door and shuffled toward the water, every parent's admonition ringing in my ears: _No running near the pool!_ The water was warm - - so, so warm - - like a bath, like a whirlpool without the whirling. This was smaller than a lap pool, but bigger than a whirlpool, deep and square. Diagrams and illustrations posted on the walls showed a series of mobility and strengthening exercises that could be done in this pool. They were not unfamiliar to me.

Edward's white tee shirt billowed up around me as I eased myself in, and I pushed it down. As the cold left my body, along with a shuddering sigh of relief, I heard Edward's gentle chuckle behind me, and I turned.

_Thank you, gods. _

Edward walking toward me in black boxer briefs made my heart leap into my throat. I knew he was lean and strong, but knowing and seeing are two different things. Apparently.

He crept toward the pool gingerly, holding his limbs close together as if to keep as much heat as possible to himself. "Christ, I'm freezing."

I ducked myself under the water, prying my attention away from him and allowing him some modesty as he slid into the pool.

Once he was immersed and moving toward me, I should have been intent on gawking. I should have been playfully splashing water at him. But my mind was still on the thoracic strengthening diagrams. There was something I had been meaning to bring up with Edward, and it occurred to me there wouldn't be a better time.

As soon as I had decided, I lifted Edward's shirt over my head in one smooth, waterlogged motion. He made a move as if to say _slow down_, then pinched his mouth shut with a swallowed gasp when he realized what I was showing him.

"Oh, Bella."

My scar, in the shape of a crooked L, stretched from the middle of my chest, between the cups of my bra, down to my low ribs and across toward my left side. Bright pink, not yet faded. This was where the surgeons had taken a portion of my left lung, passed it off to another surgeon in an adjacent room where my mother's anesthetized body waited, and sewn me up again.

"They really opened you up, didn't they?" His warm palm found my heart, and this time his thumb felt for the edge where eggshell-smooth skin gave way to stretched, shiny, flat scar tissue. He stood like that for a moment, eyes closed, as if memorizing the feeling of discovering this new geography. The only noise was the tumbling of the dryer in a nearby room, the gentle lapping of the pool.

He brought his other arm up to wrap around the back of my neck, soothing me, as he traced the length of my scar down to the center of my bra. "Does it hurt?"

"No. It's…numb."

He dropped his forehead to rest on the top of my head. "Today is October third."

I nodded.

"It would have been about a year ago, huh?"

Right again.

"Bella, no wonder. No wonder you've been feeling agitated. I should have thought of this."

I shook my head. There was nothing to be thought of, nothing to be done.

"And you were starting to tell me, earlier today. You were telling me about the archives, people writing about their lives changing, the loneliness. Who did you have to write to? Who did you have to talk to? Oh, Bella." He wrapped me in his arms and crushed me to him, his chest rising and falling.

"But that's not what I…" Or was it?

"Go on, let it out." I didn't realize I was crying.

I sniffled, embarrassed. "I'm sorry."

"Don't ever be sorry. This is the best thing you can do, believe me. Just let it out. I can't even tell you."

And so I sniffled into his shoulder a bit more.

"Are you cold?" He bent his knees, lowering us deeper into the warm water, finding a low bench to sit on.

I found a scar on his collarbone, a jagged, irregular thing, a few inches long. I ran my hands over it. "You match me, a little."

"Hardly. This was an accident. I didn't volunteer for it like you did." He meant it kindly, I think.

"Bella, you're beautiful. I can feel how strong you are. How resilient." He scooped up water in his hand and let it run down my hair, my face, my neck. Watching the narrow stream find its course. He followed the stream with two fingers, smoothing my scar as he went, and then followed that with his lips.

"You are so beautiful. And brave." Why couldn't I feel his words touch my heart?

He repeated the sequence again, this time squeezing the water out of his wet shirt above my head, and again, never stopping to explain himself. It felt good to me. He shifted me to a higher bench next to him, even with him. He traced his fingers along the lower part of my scar now. Seeing all of it. He ran his hands over my skin, murmuring questions into my ear.

"Is this alright? I'm not tickling you, am I?"

"It's alright."

"Can you still…well, if you got pregnant, could you carry it to term?"

"Oh. Yes. They told me I could, yes."

"Did you lose any sensation, you know, besides the scar?"

"Um…I don't…think so."

"I want to know about Renee. I want to know all about her. One day. I wish I could have met her." I could only nod.

His hands on me were like a balm, sealing me up and soothing me. But it also felt like no matter how many passes he made over that seamed flesh, it would always feel that way. Healing, never fully healed.

He wrapped his arms around me, pressing me to his chest.

"You feel so good to me. I think this was hard for you, tonight. And I want you to know that I know it." I nodded into his shoulder.

"Do you know how lucky you make me feel?" All I could do was shake my head. I really didn't know. He held me that way until the buzzer sounded in the next room, signaling that our clothes were dry.

~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~

I walked out to the parking lot after getting changed, wearing Edward's semi-dry coat over my dry clothes. I realized I was still clutching my wet underthings in my hand, and I quickly shoved them into the coat pocket as I walked. Edward was sitting on the gate of my truck. The night sky was brilliant, the clouds having cleared and the rain having washed the day's dust from the air. He had laid out my waterproof tarp over the wet metal and was enjoying the stars, so I sat down alongside him.

"You look better. Refreshed."

I smiled. "I'm warm, dry. Where did you find those?" Edward was wearing a grey tee shirt and a homely patterned wool cardigan. "You look like The Dude in _The Big Lebowski_."

"Jasper's office. My sweater is soaked. I can't put it in the dryer, it'll shrink." He tossed his cashmere sweater aside. I silently hoped it wasn't ruined. He looked at me and sighed. He would be leaving for Minneapolis in a matter of hours.

"B, thanks for spending the day with me."

"Yeah. Sorry some parts of it were a little rough."

"I loved every part of this day. Talk to me. Talk it out. What is it?"

"Well, now I think you're going to go to Minneapolis with this memory of me as a sniveling mess."

"No, I don't think that." He had such an expression of calm on his face. "Bella, before you came to Clearwater…well, you know by now that I was in, I don't know, self-exile mode for a long time. But I'm not a misanthrope. I need people. I love being with people. I think my resolve was already breaking down...it was only a matter of time. But that's not why we're together. Did you think I just scooped up the first cute girl who crossed my path?"

I wondered if a part of me did suspect that.

"You make me feel some new way, I can't even describe it. You don't let me bullshit myself, and I feel like you see right through me. And…um…you make people earn your trust, but you don't withhold it, either. I'm not making sense."

He clutched at a thick strand of my hair, bringing it to his nose, angling close to me so a pocket of warmth built between us.

"And you are beautiful to me, and so sexy. I love how responsive you are, and how you're not afraid to show me when you want me. That must be the most vain thing I've ever said, but it's the truth."

He kissed me, hungrily now, and yes, I wanted him. I shuddered as his hands roamed my body, bolder than ever before. When his hand reached my hip, he straightened up, remembering something.

"Oh, shit. I forgot. You're sitting here in dry pants on top of wet underwear all this time."

"Um, I'm not wearing them."

"Excuse me?"

I just looked at him, pointedly.

"Jesus, Bella. This is what I mean."

We looked at one another for a long time. Edward relaxed again, closer to me now, and placed a hand on my waist, dropping his chin to his chest. He edged his thumb in between my waistband and the edge of my shirt, anchoring himself to my skin. Then he was totally still.

"So…it's just skin like this…underneath?" He resumed making tiny circles with his thumb.

"Mmm hmmm." I half held my breath. His knees bounced up and down, and I put my hand on one to stop it.

"Do you think…" He squinted his eyes shut, then relaxed again. "Do you think you could show me?"

Gahh. Whatever I was hoping to hear him say, that beat it. The answer was yes, always yes. I put a hand on his thigh and lay back on the tarp, my legs dangling. I moved my fingers to the button of my jeans, only to have his hands still me. "Let me rephrase that. Please don't take them off. Jesus, I can't imagine stopping myself if you take them off."

He pressed his mouth into his shoulder, muttering under his breath. Something like _two long weeks_. He raised his head again. "More like…unzip?"

I nodded.

He shrugged off the cardigan and shoved it under my head. His plain tee shirt fluttered in the breeze as he lay alongside me. "Aren't you cold?"

"No. Are you?"

I shook my head. I wasn't. I was hot. And I felt bold. "You do it."

He puffed out a breath and raised his eyebrows. Then he unbuttoned me and dragged my zipper down. My heart was pounding in my ears. For a moment, he fanned his fingers out and looked at them splayed out against my triangle of white flesh. His skin was ruddy and tan next to mine. He lay his head on my chest, looking down the slope of my torso at his hand. My open jeans. He turned his head to graze his nose against my breasts, my nipples hardening under my thin shirt. He groaned when he realized I wasn't wearing a bra, either.

He swallowed audibly. "I'm going to…"

I nodded.

As his hand slid in between my jeans and my bare skin, I felt every nerve in my body flare up. I bit my tongue to keep from moaning. When he finally met with what he was seeking, he hissed, a jolt passing through his body.

"God, you're so..." His fingers moved against me, sliding. His head fell to my neck and his tongue mimicked what his hand was doing. He was trembling, making no effort to stifle his moans. "How?"

"It's you, Edward. Almost…whenever you're near me." His head snapped up, his gaze like a laser beam.

"Uh. What? Say it."

With his gaze on me, I couldn't muster more than a harsh whisper. "You make me wet, Edward." My eyes narrowed when his hand began moving more frantically, sliding this way and that. All the while, Edward watched my face.

"Yes. Just…oh, Christ." He said this to himself, or to me, I had no idea. His expression—slack-jawed, a crease between his eyebrows—made me impossibly more turned on.

And now he slowed his movements, torturing me, a snail's pace, and his eyes lit up at my gasp. A discovery. I liked it like this, too.

I don't know how I mustered the wherewithal to speak. "For the catalog?"

"No. I mean yes, sure. But this is for me. This is something I want." His husky voice went straight through me. "I want to see you come, Bella. So much."

My jeans were tight, and his hand was big, leaving so little room to maneuver. "Do you think I can make you come like this?"

"Always, Edward." I was gasping. "When I think about you. When I touch myself." Okay, I just said that. Out loud.

A sharp, astonished noise escaped him. He propped himself on his elbow and raised his free and up to clench my hair, twisting it around his wrist, loosening it again. "Are you serious? Are you fucking serious? Oh, Bella. Please…just…"

"You're about to see how serious." I struggled to keep my eyes open, to keep them focused on his face. I was falling into pleasure, a storm of disorganized pleasure.

"Is it like this? Is it like this, when you imagine it?"

"Nothing like this. Never. Nothing like this." I was so close. My head rocked side to side until Edward's mouth crashed down on mine, an onslaught of tongue and hot breath, furious with need. I could feel myself tipping over the edge in a rush. I clutched his tee shirt desperately.

At the sound of my moan he broke the kiss and rose up, watching waves of sensation reflected in my face. I jerked wildly against his hand, arching up off of the tarp, twisting toward and away from him again and again until the waves finally smoothed themselves out.

"Yes. Fucking Christ, Bella." And then his body was covering me before the cold air could sweep in, and I could feel him trembling. My bones were jelly. He hovered over me for a moment while my body adjusted temperatures, while my awareness returned. I closed my eyes.

As my faculties returned to me, I found I had threaded my leg through his and was holding his body to mine. And he knew what I was doing.

"You can feel this?" It wasn't really a question. He rocked against me, easing himself against my inner thigh.

"God, yes." I loved that he wanted me to feel it.

"I'm so turned on right now. That was one of the sexiest things I've ever seen. And you're wearing most of you clothes."

"You'll think of that while you're away?" I moved my knee higher, shifting the angle where he pressed against me.

"I can't imagine wanting to think of anything else." He shook his head and resumed kissing my neck, my pulse still pounding.

"Good. I like that. Now…you."

"What do you mean?" Even as he said it, he moved my hand to the strained fabric of his jeans. He knew what I meant. "Fuck, yes, I want your hands on me. Just…at least, zip up first."

I hesitated a second, then felt for my fly. "No. Not your pants. Your coat. Don't catch a cold." Even now, he was fussing over me. I suppressed a smirk.

He rolled onto his side, grasping my hand as soon as I was done bundling up my coat. His coat. "Come closer."

I scooted. I propped myself up. I watched as he undid his button fly.

And he watched my face.

"Uh, Bella, remind me to make you come more often. That was fucking hot."

"Um, I'll remind you. Stop trying to distract me." I couldn't account for the look on my face when I saw the size of him. I was a little bit stunned. "Oh. Edward."

"Did you just want to watch, or…"

Until this moment, I wouldn't have thought of just watching, but his face was lighting me on fire. The way he was looking at me.

"Your face is turning me on, Edward."

"Oh, my face is? No, that won't do." My face burned, realizing how that sounded to him. "There it is. That blush."

He took my hand and put it on him, guiding me, and I felt smooth satiny skin stretched taut. The solid muscle beneath. His eyelids fell closed. "You like that?"

"Edward. This…I mean...God, you feel good. So soft. I mean, your...skin."

"Shhh. That feels amazing." His hand left mine, and I continued to explore, growing bolder, watching his eyelids flutter. He rested his arms above his head on the floor of the truck. The universal sign for _I surrender_. His tee shirt rode up, exposing the V of his lower abdomen.

I was afraid of too much friction, wishing for more moisture than was coming naturally. I moved to shove my hand down my pants, feeling no shame.

He seized my hand, realizing what I was doing. "Precum."

"I'm on the pill."

"Right…carry on." His voice was strained. He released my hand and I completed my hunting and gathering mission. Wetness. Success. When he felt my hand again, slick, he let out a strangled groan. My reward. God, the noises he made.

"Christ. You will never not surprise me." He was panting. Sweating.

My hand moved more swiftly now, and he grew harder, and I watched his face pass through expressions I would never forget. "Oh, fuck. Show me."

I felt disorganized and clumsy, but he was almost there, I could feel it. The way he twitched urged me on. At the last minute, his eyes flew open, and I couldn't tear my gaze away from his face, I wouldn't dare, as he pulsed in my hand and grunted through clenched teeth. My name was what I heard.

And then in a flash, Edward was stripping off his ruined, borrowed tee shirt and cleaning up with it. It was too cold out here for bare skin, so I wrapped the ugly cardigan around him, and he wrapped himself around me. He was shivering.

He kissed me hard, moving from one spot to the next on my face. "I can't believe I'm fucking leaving. Now when I call you from the road…I'll be thinking of your hands on me."

I hadn't thought of that. In fact, I had almost forgotten he was leaving.

"Hey." He peered down at me. "Are you falling asleep on me? That's supposed to be what men do, roll over and fall asleep."

"No, I'm not asleep. I'm just sorting out all the moments for my memory. Organizing them."

"I can't wait to come home to you. "

"I know.

"In two weeks, I'm coming home to you."

"I know."

"Come on. My flight leaves in three hours, and Sam's picking me up in twenty." He picked me up and carried me to the passenger side door. "I told you you'd be exhausted."

And I was. Edward got behind the wheel, taking my keys, taking responsibility, and for once, I didn't protest one bit.


	12. Chapter 11: A Wish List

**AN:** Many thanks and a huge welcome to my beta **happymelt** and pre-readers **midsouthmama** and **faireyfan**! (Previous chapters riddled with errors are on me). They've already made a tremendous difference to me and I'm lucky to have their help! Links to music and to help visualize Edward's installation (!) are on my profile.

Playlist:  
Always Keep a Diamond in Your Mind by Tom Waits

Chapter 11: A Wish List

My dream was coming to me from inside reams of cotton batting, a thick cloud of soupy fog. A faraway lighthouse blinked. I was floating effortlessly in a saltwater sea. From time to time I measured my distance from the light and dove underwater again, never moving further away, never closer.

Eventually I slipped out of the dream, vaguely aware of my cell phone's message alert light flashing like a beacon, strangely bright in the dark of my room. The buzz must have woken me. As I fumbled to shove the phone under some clothing on the desk, I realized it was Edward's green cashmere sweater I was grasping. He would be in another city by now. I pulled the sweater under the covers, all warm softness, and with it my phone. Still half asleep, I read the message waiting for me.

_UR in so much trouble young lady_

Hmmm. Mysterious. But…such soft cashmere, the scent of Edward's body still lingering on it...I drifted off again.

Some time later, I awoke slowly, stretching my limbs under the heavy blanket, tangled in soft wool, awash in a brighter gray morning light and hearing the faint sound of crows cawing in the distance. I checked my phone again.

_Airport security line. Care to guess what I found in my coat pocket__? _

What? Care to guess–Oh! Holy crap. I bolted upright in my bed and pressed Edward's speed dial, my fingers still half-asleep. It was just after 8:00 a.m.

My call went straight to his voicemail.

_Gulp._ "Um…hello, Edward. I think you probably found my…underwear? In your pocket…because at the pool, I was wearing your coat…and then I was distracted, you know…" I saw it all now in my memory, of course. Crystal clear. "And I forgot. So, anyhow…Call me back. This is Bella."

I flopped down on the bed again, sighing. I wondered to myself what wayward turn in my childhood led to this lack of ability to ever leave a dignified and put-together voicemail message, no matter what the topic. And I'd certainly never earned my Girl Scout badge in the oral defense of inadvertent lingerie gifts. I covered my face and pressed my cool fingertips over my eyelids.

I wasn't going to fall asleep again, so I went about brushing my teeth and taking a shower. My mind drifted back over the previous day's events. And the night's events. It all seemed like a sort of getting-to-know-you storehouse that would last me while he was away. I hoped that was true.

Just as I finished toweling off, my phone began ringing, and I leapt to answer it. He was chuckling softly. He skipped the formalities.

"Yes, Bella. Panties and bra—a matched set. Very pretty."

"Edward, I…" I what? I didn't know what to say. I started pacing back and forth in my bedroom.

"Don't get me wrong. I'm happy to have it. Are you kidding? It was just somewhat awkward timing, going through security."

I winced. Except…"Um, an underwire won't set off the detector. I would know. And you're not supposed to wear your coat through it anyhow."

"Oh, I didn't. This was the body scanner. And it was more of an…anatomic problem."

I froze in my tracks. "No."

"Yes."

"You mean you found my…and then…?" I sat down.

He had walked through the scanner sporting a semi. On Edward, that would have been quite an exhibition. I was turned on, flattered, and mortified all at once. And I had a new topic to work into my _Privacy in America_ syllabus for next semester—the scanner phenomenon, that is. Not Edward's…phenomenon.

"Yes. I think I made somebody's day. Either that or I'm on a list of perverts."

Oh. My. God. The mental images going through my mind...I felt an unfamiliar rush of possessiveness all of a sudden; whatever those airport screeners had seen, it was for me—_for me_.

"Wait, where are you right now?"

"Still at the hotel. Where are you?"

"At home, of course. I mean…it's early. Oh, did I wake you up?"

"Nah. I got a few hours in."

Was I about to initiate some dirty talk? Honestly, I had considered phone sex was a theoretical possibility, but I hadn't imagined launching right in, just ten or twelve hours into his trip. I had never done this—but before I had a chance to panic, his voice came over the line again.

"Hey, Bella, I'm just on my way in to a meeting. So, I don't have much time to talk. I just wanted to hear your voice." He cleared his throat. "I wish you had something of mine. I mean, I didn't know…I didn't know how nice it would be."

"I have your sweater."

"Oh, that's right."

"Remember, I said I would get it dry cleaned."

"Maybe…don't get it cleaned until after I come home."

Ugh. How did he know what to say? The things that came out of his mouth sometimes made me feel so open and exposed to him, but so comfortable at the same time.

"No, I don't think I will."

"Good. Hey, I gotta go, so…talk to you later. Have a good day."

"You, too."

I stood in the middle of my room for a moment, still clutching my bath towel around me. I already missed him. But I could keep myself busy. I would have to.

I usually reveled in my unstructured Sundays, but today I wished for a task to occupy me. I threw on some clothes and dragged myself downstairs to brew coffee and eat a bowl of cereal. I was contemplating calling Alice about a trip to the antiques market or some such diversion, when my phone rang again.

"Bella, this is Emily Uley. I wonder if I can ask you for a favor? Edward said he thought you wouldn't mind."

"Sure. What is it?"

"Can you take my Aunt Sue to a doctor's appointment while I mind Muddywaters for her?"

"Oh, of course. I'll be right over. Are you at the café now? Is anything wrong?"

"Yes, we're there now. She just needs to have her blood pressure meds adjusted, and it's best not to wait. Usually I would ask Edward or Sam, but, well, you know Edward is away and Sam won't be back from Cleveland until tonight."

"Okay. I'll be there in a few minutes."

When I met Emily at the café, she handed me a hot cup of coffee in a to go cup and let me know that Carlisle was expecting us. Before long, I had Sue bundled into the warm cab of my truck as we headed toward her appointment. I glanced nervously at her and noted with relief that she was perfectly alert; her skin was pink and healthy.

Now it was her phone that rang. It was one of those old-fashioned looking cell phones with large, easy-to-read buttons. "Hello? Oh, hi, Edward. Yes, I'm fine… No, nothing is wrong, I'm just getting checked." I could hear the muffled undertones of Edward's voice, but not his words. "I understand. Don't be silly, Edward. I'm comfortable, yes. I know."

She looked over at me. "Yes, she's a very good driver." Then she started laughing. "Yes, she's very pretty, too."

I attempted a frown, but I was amused. I was tickled by the way he was doting on Sue. He was charming her and flirting with me at the same time.

"Oh, you! Some brown slacks and a pink blouse. Okay, corduroys. Whatever." I looked down at my outfit, bemused at the idea that Edward was enlisting Sue to find out what I was wearing. "Okay, I'll tell her. Goodbye."

"He said to tell you he'll call you when you're not driving."

"That's very proper of him. Thanks, Sue."

"He's a good man, you know."

"I think there are a lot of good people in this town. But you're right. He is…so good." I felt weirdly moved to hear Sue tell me this. I knew Edward had friends outside of his family, but it felt good to hear. I wondered if he knew.

She gazed out the window as she spoke. "This is a nice place to live. But it can be very isolating…especially in winter. That's why I opened Muddywaters. So people have a place, you know." She looked back at me, smiling brightly.

"Is that how Edward met Sam?"

"No…" She seemed to think it over. "Sam is good with tools, like Edward, and he does odd jobs during the low season. I think that they met because of Edward's art projects way back in high school."

We had pulled into the hospital parking lot, but Sue seemed to have something more to say. "Let me tell you, Bella…it was strange when Sam broke things off with my Leah all those years ago." She smiled and picked imaginary lint from her cardigan. "You know that Sam and Leah were high school sweethearts? Well, they were. But Sam and Emily, well…that was different. Everyone could see right away that they had something special."

Sue looked at me from the corner of her eye, gauging my reactions. "It's tough in a small town because people gossip. That was part of my worry for Leah. I knew she would get over it, but to face people knowing her cousin had stolen away her man? That was hard on her. She was just about to start college and her confidence was down. Edward, well, he made it look like he was her rebound for a while. Just being seen around town with her, holding the door for her, carrying her packages. He was so bashful explaining himself to Harry and me—assuring us he wasn't taking advantage of Leah—but we knew he didn't have it in him."

It occurred to me that every time anyone talked about Edward to me, it was to praise him. The upshot was that I became more aware of the elephant in the room. What weren't they saying? Did it make me doubt Edward more, somehow? It reminded me of the days leading up to Renee's surgery last year. There were so many things no one wanted to address head on. And her surgeons…they had been the most optimistic of all. It had gotten to the point where I was now suspicious of optimism. Well, at least I was aware of it. That was the first step.

Sue leaned on me as I walked her into the clinic entrance of the hospital.

~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.

Edward and I played phone tag and traded texts throughout the rest of the day. When I finally spoke to him late at night, I could hear the exhaustion in his voice, so we kept it short. Minneapolis was cold and dry. The hotel was generic. His artist-in-residency program was demanding, making the time fly by. That was good, at least.

By Monday night, I told myself it was time to check Edward's plants and mailbox. I let myself into his place, flipping on the lights. And then a new agenda took shape in my mind.

An hour later, my cell phone rang. I answered it gingerly, being careful not to slosh.

"Finally." I had been waiting to hear his voice for too long.

"Well. You sound relaxed." He chuckled, a low and deep rumble.

"Yeah, you could say that. I'm enjoying a nice Bordeaux in front of the fire."

"The fire? Wait, are you at my place?"

"I am. Your plants are healthy, thanks to me."

"Do I hear some Howlin' Wolf?"

"Yeah, I saw it on the top of your pile here. I haven't heard this on vinyl in a long time."

"I might have heard you talking about Chicago blues to Sue one day. So I dragged it out of the deep storage. It's nice, right?"

"Mmm." I decided my hands were too full. And the water was getting cold. I set my wine glass down on the floor carefully and started to stand up, reaching for a towel.

"What is that? Are you doing dishes?"

I cringed. "Um…I was taking a bath. I couldn't resist! I'm getting out now."

I braced myself for laughter that never came.

"Huh. Bella, that is just…are you telling me you've got a fire going, and you're taking a bath while listening to records?"

The only thing missing was a bearskin rug. "Don't forget the wine. But, yeah…I didn't know how it might sound to you."

I wrapped myself in the towel. It was soft and plush. Oversized.

"How it might sound to me? It sounds like you're making yourself at home. And I like it."

"Really? I thought it might sound like I'm enjoying your creature comforts while you're toiling away alone, sleeping uncomfortably in a sad hotel." I clutched the towel around me and clicked off the fireplace and the record player. They were distracting me.

"It's a fine hotel. Besides…Bella, will you do something for me?" He paused. I could almost hear him through the phone line scratching his scruffy jaw. "I said once that I didn't keep a diary when I was a teenager."

"I kinda remember that."

"Well, I keep one now. Excuse me, a _journal_."

"Oh." I tucked my bath towel tighter.

"It's on my nightstand. Do you see it? It's mostly just grocery lists and crap. But there's something I want you to see. Will you, um, open it to the last page?" His voice sounded so far away.

"The last page?"

"Yeah."

I perched on the edge of Edward's crisp white bed and flipped the journal open. It was a plain, slim Moleskine, its pages filled with jotted notes, sketches, diagrams. When I saw what was written on the last page, I pressed my fingers to my lips, swallowing a hiccup of surprise and something strange that contracted my chest.

"It's silly. I was just scribbling notes, a little joke to myself. But...if I asked you to pick one of those things, would you?"

It was a list. My name, then eight items. After the first two, the ink changed from black to red, then to blue, like he had gone back and added things at different moments.

"Besides the plants and mail? Because I already agreed to those." I ran my fingers over the impressions left by his pen, the letters of my name, as if I could measure his intent.

"Besides those."

"Yes, I would."

"Which one?"

I didn't stop to think. I didn't need to.

"The last one."

Everything on this list was reasonable…well, except maybe number five, which was impossible. But the last one was what I wanted most. _Sleep in my bed._

I heard him breathe into the phone—a soft, stuttering sound. "Yeah? When… tonight?"

"Tonight. Can I do it more than once?"

"Yes. Hell yes, as much as you want…Jesus, Bella. I don't know why I like the idea so much. It makes me feel less distant from you."

I ran my fingers over the lettering again. It was silly, but I wanted to burn the sentiment into my pores. This list was, in some way, the antidote to the desperate, hopeless archives letters I'd been reading. It was a wish list of basic, simple wants, and he was sharing it with me.

"See how quickly you can make me do your bidding, Edward? I'm already under the covers…"

And that was the first night I spent in Edward's huge, luxurious, no-nonsense bed.

~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.

By the time Friday rolled around, I was practically clawing at the walls looking for distractions. Alice snickered at me as I fiddled with her iPod from the passenger seat of Edward's borrowed car.

"Got anything on your mind, Bella?"

"What?"

"Your song choices are making me want to drive off the road. We need something a little more upbeat."

"They are?" I realized I was playing a lot of sappy emo junk, so I handed the iPod to Rose in the back seat. "Take over, please? I can't be trusted."

"Halfway there. Almost." Alice pursed her lips sympathetically. "But no moping is allowed in Columbus. I think they passed an ordinance. It's verboten."

I sighed, annoyed with myself. Edward would be home in a week. _Just a week_, but also _a whole week_. "Sorry, guys. I've been looking forward to this trip, I swear."

Rose settled on a mix of '90s riot grrrl bands—L7 and Bikini Kill. From the back seat, she shouted over the music, "Come on, ladies. Let's fuck shit up in Columbus."

She was half joking, but I had never seen Rose like this. It cracked me up. By the time we rolled into town and found our hotel, I was in a much better mood. The hotel clerk recommended a bistro in the Short North neighborhood for dinner, and the girls and I watched the people strolling by the big picture window, popping in and out of the galleries on the street. After dinner, Rose steered us toward a bookstore that stayed open until midnight, and I loaded up on discount books. By the time I hit the sack, I was out like a light, eager for the morning to come. We'd be starting off the next day at the Columbus Art Museum, where I had been told I would see some of Edward's work.

The next morning I was perched on a museum bench, eagerly studying the map of galleries. Alice was busy checking our coats and Rose was in the ladies room. In the morning light, the six-story high sculpture anchoring the museum atrium glowed and dappled the marble floors with shadows. It put me in the right mindset for looking at art. I had first seen this piece profiled in, of all places, the airline magazine on a flight between Chicago and Phoenix. It had become synonymous with the museum in recent years—shorthand for the new era of serious contemporary art taking hold in places like Columbus, Detroit, and Minneapolis.

In the photos I'd seen, the piece had seemed dramatic and impossibly complex, a billowing form comprised of thousands upon thousands of tiny individual metal and glass orbs strung on tensile wires, reflecting various shades of buttery light. It called to mind the cloudy vapor trails of a space shuttle, or the organic, unpredictable path a stream of dye might take through a deep pool of water. In person, I was struck by the solidity of something so airy and diaphanous. The light and shadows never stopped moving, but the sculpture itself was as solid as a rock.

Alice and Rose plopped down next to me, craning their necks to gaze up as I was doing. I tore my eyes away. "So, I can't stand it. I need to go find Edward's sculpture. Will you come with me?"

The girls grinned at me, eyes wide, then broke into laughter. "Bella. You're looking at it now." Alice hooked her elbow in mine and let her head rest on my shoulder.

_This_ was it? I gaped silently. I don't know what I had been expecting. I sought out the placard that would give me some explanation, some confirmation. I had either never seen or never retained the artist's name. Sure enough, here it was, right beside the bench.

_E.M. Cullen, 2005._

_Our Parents, our Other Parents, and Anyone Who Would Have Been our Parents_

_Mixed media._

_Unmistakably organic, while variably soft and hard, mercurial and reliable, gentle and uncompromising, Cullen's installation invites meditation on the unpredictable qualities of nature and life—and, perhaps, of family. _

_The artist has spoken publicly, in other venues, about the importance of his adoptive parents in his life and that of his sister; about this particular sculpture, as with all of his individual works, he has been characteristically silent, preferring to invite a viewer's interpretation. However, the number of glass and metal orbs comprising the installation cannot be insignificant, given the title of the piece; at 115,728, that number is equal to the number of children who awaited adoption in U.S. foster homes in 2005._

My eyes threatened to spill over with tears, and I returned the little squeeze Alice gave me.

"Now you see?"

"Alice, it's beautiful."

"I know." Her face was a mixture of pride, wonder, and love. It was exciting to see her so present and engaged in the moment, supportive and part of her brother's work. Other times, when she was lost in thought, she could seem to be a million miles away.

"You know, we never learned who my birth parents were. He knew his. Everyone did. But I was simply left on the doorstep of the fire department. I was too young to remember." Now she turned to me. "But he helped me see how much possibility was ahead of us, every day. He never let me feel sorry for myself."

"Oh, Alice. You mean so much to him. You're not worried, are you? That he's going to leave?"

She gave her head a tight shake, her eyes never leaving the installation. Her skin was freckled with spots of light and shadow. "No, not really. I know he won't do anything impulsive. And…no matter where he goes, we stay connected."

Then we were off to explore the rest of the museum. From every floor, from almost every corner of the museum, I could see Edward's installation from a different perspective. Sometimes all I saw were the shadows and spots of golden light reflected into dark corners, warming them. Warming me. What a terrific day.

When we finally gathered our coats to leave, my eye was caught by a stack of article reprints near the door. They were from an old issue of _Art Face_ magazine, and Edward's name shouted to me from the cover. A profile of him. I shoved one into my bag as we walked out.

~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.

From the back of the car, my fingers itched to text Edward. I knew he would be with art teachers and students all weekend, working on the special community art project he was spearheading, so he wouldn't have time to talk until later in the evenings. I couldn't find the right words to tell him how I felt about what I had seen. I settled for the understatement of the century.

_Your Columbus installation. WOW. _

_Thx my sweet._

_Art Face Mag Jan 07 hot in my hands. Will it scar me?_

_GROAN. Just call me after u read, ok?_

Alice and Rose were deep in conversation in the front of the car, debating which vintage shops were the least hassle parking-wise and had a decent selection. I flipped open the reprint.

The article began with a portrait that made my heart leap, and not necessarily in a pleasant way. Edward, in a tight black tee shirt shirt and black jeans, was gazing confidently at the camera, arms folded across his chest, holding an immovable stance. His hair was wild. His eyes glowed. Roaming around in the background were four—no, five—statuesque, impeccably groomed, buffed and polished naked women. Naked, but for stiletto heels. The expression on Edward's face was unfamiliar to me: aloof, disinterested, but mischievous all the same, like he shared a private joke with the photographer. Most of the women were facing away from the camera or sideways, some of them touching one another in ambiguous ways while gazing with undisguised desire at...a wall. A wall that was covered with plush, silky, champagne-colored fake fur. Sprawled across the bottom half of the portrait was the article's title and byline:

_MOST WANTED_ _by Heidi Violet._

The headline only deepened the twist in the pit of my stomach.

_E.M. CULLEN WANTS ME TO THINK ABOUT RUBBING MY NAKED BODY ALL OVER HIS ARTWORK_

I took a deep breath and delved in.

"_Of course, I don't want you to do it," he clarifies, flashing a cheeky smile. "I only want you to think about it. I want you to control yourself, but just barely."_

_The tempering of desire is the subject of E.M. Cullen's latest, shall we say, tongue-in-cheek exercise. The most recent inductee to a fraternity of celebrated art provocateurs that includes the likes of Jeff Koons and Damien Hirst, Cullen has consistently challenged and stunned collectors and critics since his days as a prodigiously talented undergraduate at the University of Washington. No one was surprised when he was named the North America Foundation Emerging Artist of 2006—an honor accompanied by a six-figure cash award and attention from galleries around the world—at just 30 years old. _

_Cullen doesn't want to talk about that. He wants to talk about buttercream frosting._

"_Buttercream has a subtle, pearlescent sheen that you won't find in royal icing. At least, mine does. Fondant? Forget about it. Dull, pasty. And no aroma. Ganache has a wonderful seductive quality, but it slides right down the wall." _

_Come again? The wall, you say?_

_Lately, Cullen has taken to covering untouchable surfaces—like canvasses and gallery walls—with materials that are nothing if not touchable. In one room, an avalanche of thick, aromatic buttercream frosting has come to rest on a marble pedestal strategically positioned closer to mouth level than eye level. Another display places the viewer between broiling hot space heaters and a 12-foot by 18-foot slab of thick, glassy ice. The only way out is via an undulating cave of plush fake fur that begs to be touched—crisscrossed by slim red laser beams that that promise to punish. Familiar art museum trappings—a velvet rope here, clicking motion sensors there—instruct us on how to behave. We obey. _

"_I'm interested in the collision between desire and restraint. We're taught that because art is a commodity and an investment, it can't be touched. And in some cases, the only way to preserve a work for posterity is to keep our hands off, but these pieces aren't the Piet__à.__ I'm going to disassemble them in a couple of weeks…a few days, even. Nonetheless, people refuse themselves the pleasure of touching them, even when it's obvious they're being manipulated. Why?"_

_It's a question he won't answer. Instead, he asks and watches. During one afternoon, the dozens of faces who visit the experimental display—Cullen refuses to call it an exhibit—are a master class on inconspicuous consumption. No one challenges any boundaries. Some laugh, some scoff. Most drink in every sensation available to them within the normative confines of a gallery. Cullen does the same, only he is consuming reactions. Some faces he sketches surreptitiously: expressions of conscious desire, moments of resigned self-denial. Cullen seems pleased. When it comes to seduction, he's done his homework. _

_He claims this experiment is more of a study than a legitimate representation of his ideas. An undercurrent of playfulness can be seen throughout his work, as collectors compete to nail down the young artist's "authentic" masterpieces. _

_In those works, including the 2005 "Our Parents…" at The Columbus Museum of Art, spirited ideas are painstakingly executed to memorable and moving effect. Throughout Cullen's growing oeuvre, tactile experiences—or suggestions of tactile experiences—are mined for their emotional cores. The motifs of light and temperature recur. His early works are distinguished by warm, golden-honey tones, though a colder palette has been introduced as of late. _

_E. M. Cullen is represented by the Volturi Gallery in New York City. _

I closed the reprint. This was a lot to process. I spent the remainder of the day in a haze of distraction, wanting desperately to hear Edward's voice and sort out the nuggets of truth from journalistic exaggeration. Nothing in there was truly scandalous, yet I had a nagging sense that there were sides of Edward's personality I didn't know. I told myself that was only natural; we'd met just a matter of weeks ago.

More than once, Rose or Alice had to talk me out of a poor decision about a new winter coat, but I eventually found something suitable and not entirely dowdy looking. I wondered if Edward would see it and pronounce judgment. I pictured him leering, foisting a full-length fur on me. I shuddered. I was freaking myself out unnecessarily.

As soon as the girls and I finished dinner, I begged off to call Edward, promising to meet them in the hotel lounge for drinks when I was through.

He answered his phone with a groan and a battery of questions. "Bella, did you read it? Are you horrified? That's not me. Believe me, I begged them to tank the whole feature. I was furious."

"Um, yeah, it wasn't that bad."

"First of all, that portrait…that was a composite. They Photoshopped me in. It's a ridiculous idea, nude patrons in a gallery. My students were up in arms about it—and they had every right to be. That magazine…they didn't even ask me what I thought about it…using women as props."

I hadn't expected this to be his main complaint about the article, but now that he had mentioned it, I felt relieved. I pressed him to explain further. "But artists use nudes all the time as models."

"Sure, as models. If the human form is the subject of a painting, that's fine. An artist can't represent a nude form without also revealing his or her point of view, so there is accountability there. But this…it had nothing to do with my work. I don't ask patrons to parade nude while I stand around with a smug smile. What did it make you think of me, seeing that?"

"Well, I guess it surprised me. I know you're not a prude, but I also didn't think you would resort to nudity as a way to get attention for yourself. And anyhow, I know how magazines work..."

"That writer was coming onto me, and she wanted to sell this image of me as a sexy beast…a seducer or something. I just didn't have any control over it." He sounded frustrated. "Thank you for not freaking out."

"Actually, I was more surprised that there was a profile at all. I mean, Edward, in the time that I've known you, attention is the last thing you want. There's nothing wrong with it. It just...makes me want to know more about who you were then. That's all."

He was silent for a moment.

"Oh. You're right." His tone was softer. "God, I wish I were with you right now. I'm glad we can talk about this, but I want to see your face."

"Me, too. Don't worry; we'll talk more when I see you. I mostly wish you were with me when I saw your installation. Edward, it is so beautiful."

His voice quieted even more. "Thank you."

"Alice got to be the one to see me get all weepy. So at least there's that."

"Yes, at least there's that. Where is she? How is she doing?"

"She's good. She and Rose are down at the bar. I said I'd join them in a few minutes."

"Okay, well, I guess I'd better let you go. I feel better about this if you do."

"I feel fine." I did feel fine.

"And, Bella?"

"Yes?"

"I didn't sleep with her."

"What? With who?"

"That writer. It was years ago, summer of '06 when she interviewed me, but nothing happened…just so you know."

"Oh. Okay." I wasn't sure what to make of this. He had told me himself that he had a colorful past, that he had spent some time hooking up with eager women left and right. That fact in itself didn't bother me, especially knowing he had put the brakes on. It was more that I was beginning to get a sense of just how much I had left to discover about Edward—just how far I was from really knowing him. I wanted to know him. I was impatient. I saw myself becoming frustrated, and it worried me.

"Edward, we'll talk more when you're home."

"Sure thing. How about tomorrow, too? Let's talk tomorrow."

"Okay, I'll call you. Have a good night."

"Goodnight, Bella."

~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.

I found out more about Edward sooner than I ever expected. He and I did talk, every night, usually when I was wrapped in the crisp sheets of his bed. Then on Wednesday night, Alice, Jasper and I were walking past a dorm when some students started unfurling cloth banners from the windows. The banners advertised a Halloween spectacle and dance concert.

Alice slowed her pace. She looked at her shoes, then at me, then at Jasper, then back at me.

"Bella, you know that Halloween is a big deal here."

"Yeah, Alice, it's kind of legendary." Half of my grad school colleagues had regaled me with tales of Newcoven's epic Halloween extravaganzas when I told them of my job offer here. And I had seen Alice preparing her own performance and a set of student performances.

"Right. Well, you need to see why." She looked at Jasper. He nodded in agreement. I saw that we had come to a stop in front of the library.

Five minutes later, we were ensconced in the small audiovisual screening room.

"I don't want you to be blindsided next week when everything really starts up in earnest, so...I think you should see this now," Alice said cautiously. "This is a video the college will be showing at kiosks all around campus on a continuous loop, pretty much, through the end of October."

Now, Alice was an excitable person, but she wasn't prone to creating invented drama. I was truly curious about what it was she wanted me to see. When we were settled into our comfortable upholstered seats, I leaned my head back and my eyes adjusted to the dimming lights.

The video was a compilation of highlights from Halloween events in years past. The stories I had heard were all true, and then some. I saw forty-foot bonfires surrounded by armies of ghouls dancing in unison on stilts, juggling torches; grainy Technicolor footage of elaborately costumed students, townspeople, and children filling the football stadium with a frenzy of dance and performance; a Chinese dragon, the type you could see in Chinese New Year parades, but three times the normal size, wrapping around the dining hall. Then the pace of the video slowed to focus on a thread of massive white helium balloons a half-mile long, lighting up the pitch black night sky like a chain of moons, all of it anchored by a glowing white platform where a full orchestra played Stravinsky's _Infernal Dance._

The remainder of the video introduced a celebrated tradition called _Campus in a Costume_, which transformed familiar spaces in the style of various environmental artists like Christo and Robert Smithson—all of them playful, over-the-top, semi-satirical take-offs. The administration building was transformed into an enormous glowing jack-o-lantern, covered in billowing saffron orange silk in a nod to Christo's Central Park _Gates. _Dozens of students were covered from head to toe in white plaster-of-Paris, standing stock-still in scattered positions around the square in homage to George Segal's iconic white figures. It showed me a face of Newcoven College that was daring and festive and earnestly joyful.

And throughout it all, Edward. An Edward I had never seen. An Edward who made my heart race.

Edward barking instructions into a megaphone, directing hundreds of students in green leotards fanning out in Busby Berkeley formations on the lawn.

Edward being lofted into the air by a squad of zombie cheerleaders.

A close-up of Edward covered in sweat and bronze glitter, teasing the camera operator with a wet paintbrush.

Edward with a student standing on his shoulders to adjust the position of a giant marionette puppet head.

Edward, muscled and tan, in a white tank top and jeans, hammering a wooden structure alongside students.

Edward with Alice sitting on his shoulders, shouting cheers to students involved in a Jackson Pollack-style splatter paint extravaganza.

Edward surrounded—always surrounded—by throngs of energetic students, every one of them lit from within by enthusiasm for whatever project their Pied Piper had in mind. He was the ringmaster of these heartbreakingly beautiful spectacles, and the force of nature compelling students to make something unimaginably wonderful, and the passionate sun around which planets spun joyfully, year after year.

Even when he wasn't front and center, I picked him out in the background embracing fellow artists, men and women alike—people whom he treated like strangers today. He twirled students off their feet in celebration, draped his long arm over shoulders here and there in a casual gesture of familiarity and friendship. He participated. He belonged. He was…happy.

It was the smile that got to me most. The same smile I had seen captured in the black and white portrait above my desk—the one I felt so privileged to have access to, the one that seemed as rare, and as precious, and as sparkling as a gemstone—it was his default. It was real. It never left his face.

Alice let me cycle through the eight-minute video three times before cutting me off. I shuddered to think what my own face looked like after that. Jasper pressed his hand on top of mine.

"If it's any consolation, he's starting to come back."

"He has a long way to come."

"Yes." Jasper laughed sadly. "Yes, he does."

I had wished for this, after all. I had wanted to know more, and now I knew. I knew more from that video than any number of stories could have told me. Edward would be home in two days. A combination of worry and relief coursed through me. I had been dismissing any and all concerns about whether he'd come home, or how long he'd stay; instead, what I should have been wondering—what I couldn't stop thinking about now—was _who_ he'd be, and why, when he was in my arms again.

~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.

**AN:** Thanks for reading, please review! Do you like the name of "Art Face" magazine? It's my homage to the hilariously stupidly-named movie _Face Punch_ in New Moon. Edward's Columbus installation is inspired by Thomas Heatherwick's _bleigiessen. _No infringement intended!


	13. Chapter 12: A Mark

****Reader WARNING**** This chapter contains a recounting of a suicide. If this subject matter is difficult for you, please know that it is for me, too, and I will do my best to treat it with as much honesty and sensitivity as possible, in this and future chapters.

My awesome beta is **happymelt** and I am also lucky to have **midsouthmama** and **faireyfan** pre-reading each chapter. Many thanks. I do not own Twilight.

**Playlist (links on my profile):  
Never Ever **by the Shout Out Louds**  
That Feel** by Tom Waits and Keith Richards

**Chapter 12: A Mark**

Patience was something that had always come naturally to me. I'd been grateful all my life for my ability to keep myself occupied while anticipating some long-awaited event. Not so much right now.

Edward was inching his way closer to home. Closer to me. He was in Sam's truck at this moment, delayed by a nightmarish traffic jam involving a jackknifed semi on a county road just 20 miles from Clearwater. He'd stopped calling an hour ago, afraid that his cell battery would die. It had been 20 minutes since his last text, which described a glacial pace of progress.

I checked the real-time traffic map online, stroking my finger over the snarl of highway arteries digitally painted red on the screen, as if I could manually untangle it. There were no fatalities, thankfully, just a disastrous mess in the road.

I pulled up Edward's texts from earlier in the day.

Just before he boarded his 6:00 p.m. flight:

_Take a nap. I want you wide awake later. _

Oof. That made my eyes roll back in my head, then and now. And I had done it, too—I had napped a full forty minutes.

Then at 8:30:

_Baggage claim. Sam is here. C U in 2 hrs babe_

It was now almost midnight.

I looked around Edward's place. It was as spotless as he had left it. The air still smelled like apples and cinnamon from the muffins I had baked in my effort to while away the time.

That had been item number seven on the list in his journal: _cook/bake anything from Uley box_. Like a lot of families in town, Edward had an assortment of produce from the Uley farm delivered weekly, and I had eaten well all week.

Catching my reflection in the mirror near the door, I fidgeted with my shirtdress and finger-combed my hair. Edward's pile of mail teetered precariously on the narrow credenza. I divided it into three equal stacks, then combined those into two. Yesterday, on Thursday morning, a priority FedEx had arrived for him. I had called Edward to see if he was expecting something urgent, telling him it was from the Brandon Masen Fund.

"Oh, crap. That stuff needs a signature. Can you take it to Alice today? She's the only other person authorized to sign."

"Yeah, I'll see her at ten. Is that early enough?"

"Perfect." He paused. "Listen, Bella…it's not exactly a secret, but Alice and I are trustees of this Fund. Uh, we founded it, actually."

"Wait, really? I've heard of it. Angela was telling me about it. Emergency tuition grants, right?"

"And community arts programs, and disaster response. Yeah. What happened was…my birth parents were the last of a wealthy family in town…the Masens." As soon as he spoke the words, my eyes fell on his address label: E.M. Cullen.

"Is that what the M stands for? Masen?" As in Masen Hall, and Masen Square, and the Brandon Masen Fund. This was news.

"Yeah. When they arranged for Carlisle and Esme to take custody of me, they left them their estate, too. But Carlisle and Esme put it all into a trust in my name. They never touched it. They wanted to make sure I knew the money had nothing to do with my adoption, and they were comfortable enough already living on what they both earned. It provided more than enough for me and Alice. So, when I turned 18, I took out just what I needed for college and a bit for a nest egg, and used the rest to create this Foundation."

"Wow. That's…" I didn't know what it was. It was both surprising and not surprising. I thought back to little details of the cozy, well-worn home Edward had grown up in—the chicken coop, the hand-built tree house. Those things had made him who he was.

He was moving through the halls of his hotel as we talked, on his way to the second-to-last day of his residency program. I could hear his breathing get heavier as he left the building and began walking toward the Art Center. The sound of the wind whipped through the phone.

"Whew, it's cold. What was I saying? Oh, yeah…you know, the way I see it, the money was never mine. It just made sense. The Masen family had always been philanthropic, and I thought carrying on that tradition on their behalf was the right thing to do. But I'm a Cullen. Alice is a Cullen. Our family now is our real family, and we were raised with the example of earning a living. I made Alice a co-trustee with me, to keep things balanced, and we've been at it for 15 years…oh, shit! My scarf!"

Scuffling noises were coming across the phone line, and I heard cars honking. I winced at the idea that he would chase his scarf into traffic. I heard his muffled "thank you" to some passerby who had snagged his scarf.

"Edward, be careful!" I laughed. "You're in the big city now, Ohio!"

He chuckled. "Easy, Swan. I'm a sensitive country bumpkin. Are you trying to hurt my feelings?"

"No, I would never. But it sounds like you've got to go. I'll bring this to Alice. Let's talk tonight, okay?"

He had called me that night from the open house that was the culmination of his program. The art teachers he'd been working with, their high school-age students, and the students' parents were all there—along with Art Center administrators and a handful of Twin Cities artists. After a debriefing the next day, he'd be on his way home. I was in the library when my phone vibrated, and I stepped outside to take the call. A few boisterous students were taking a study break out on the lawn.

"It's the best! The kids are great. They blow me away. The artwork is so good. They can see how proud their teachers are. And the parents…some of them are telling me they've never seen anything like this from their kids. Never. I'm taking pictures, but it's impossible to capture. I wish you could be here, B."

"So, it's good? Oh, I'm so, so glad."

"What? Say it again." He was basically shouting into the phone because of the loud music playing in the background.

"I said I'm happy for you. I'm proud of you. Will...will you do it again?" These were strange words to be yelling. I looked around to see if I was drawing attention, but the students were busy jumping into piles of leaves, not paying me any mind.

He answered immediately.

"No. Not here. Maybe I can do something like this in Clearwater, but I don't like being away from my known elements. I could get so much more done in the same amount of time when I know who to talk to and where to get resources."

His voice was starting to blend into the background music. Had I heard him right?

"Uh, okay."

"Bella, did you hear me?"

"No. What was it?"

"I said now I know. Even though it went better than I hoped, I still don't want it. So now I know for sure. I just want to be home. And I miss you."

"Edward, come home, then." I was laughing, but I felt so overwhelmed by relief, I was in danger of bursting into tears.

"I know, baby. I am. I'll see you soon."

~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.

Now my phone chimed at me: a new message. I snapped out of my little daze.

_#5 #5 #5 Plz Plz. Should pass this wreck in 30 min. ETA 45._

I smiled at this. Despite the frustration of traffic, his mood was light. Edward's number five on the journal list asked me to _teleport through the phone lines_.

I typed my reply. _I'll be here. Drive safely._

_Doze if u need to. __I'll wake u, believe me. _

I looked at the bed. I was a ball of nervous energy waiting for him, but if I could get in another quick catnap now, I'd be all the more rested when he got home. I set my phone alarm to ring in forty minutes and snuggled in.

But my alarm wasn't what woke me. Instead, a commotion in the stairwell roused me and set my heart racing. Edward was early. Less late. Whatever. I was blinking away the sleepiness when I saw him tumble through the door at the far end of the room, his shape lit dimly by the bedside table light. He kicked off his shoes as he strode toward me, stumbling and throwing off his coat.

I sat halfway up and began to swing my legs over the side of the bed.

"No. Stay there. Christ, Bella."

And then he was on me, diving under the covers, kissing and holding me, clutching me with all of his limbs at once, his whole body at once, ankles and forearms and ribcage and hands. When I heard him groan, the floodgates opened and I felt desperate for more of him, wishing I could pull his bones inside of my bones, feel his fingertips everywhere at once.

But there was something I couldn't ignore. "Edward…you…why do you have a beard?" I squealed. His furry face was buried in my neck, tickling me.

"Because I grew a beard. It happens when a man doesn't shave for two weeks." He was mumbling into my skin. "And I was waiting for you. I'm going to go shave this mess off, and I want your skin to be the first thing to touch my face. Fuck, I want to go down on you."

Heat shot through my body like a fever. God, I wanted that, too. But I wasn't about to take my hands off him. Not now. I was still breathing in the scent of his skin, his hair. "Not…don't you dare go anywhere."

He murmured, his lips skimming across my forehead. I felt the shape of a smile. "Really, that's a 'no'?"

"No…not 'no.'" I was laughing through my kisses, so happy to finally be with him. "Just…wait. I need you."

"Okay, okay. I know. I can't believe I'm coming home to find you in my bed, Bella. God, I wanted this. I fucking missed you so much. You smell so good. What is that, cinnamon?" His strong hands cupped my face the way I liked. He tangled his legs in mine.

"It's the muffins." His hand came up to unbutton a single button and he laid his palm against my skin where my heart was pounding.

"The muffins? Uh, no. It's not muffins. It's your skin. Uhn. Come here…more." His voice was all breathy whisper.

I rolled my head to the side to feel him run his mouth and nose along the sensitive skin of my neck. He started dipping down to plant wet kisses on my half-bare chest, bolder now, and I liked it. So I told him.

"I like that."

"Good."

He hummed and trailed a soft, deliberate row of hot kisses along the edge of my scar, then lifted his head. The corner of his mouth twitched into the ghost of a shy smile. He entwined his fingers in mine and pulled my hand closer, brushing it along my collarbone, kissing my fingers one by one. "Bella."

Finally, finally, he bent to kiss my lips. Once I tasted his breath again, every conscious thought left my head, and all that mattered was the tenderness of his lips, his searching tongue, heat everywhere, an occasional flutter of eyelashes. I kissed him slowly for I don't know how long. My Edward was back.

I had to come up for air eventually, and found myself looking up at him. His eyes were twinkling, lit like a fuse. His face filled my field of vision.

"Hi." I tucked an errant strand of his hair back, only to feel it fall back onto my cheek.

"Yeah. Hi."

"You're home."

"I'm home." He traced my hairline with his fingers.

"Are you tired?" I realized my phone alarm was still set to ring, so I snaked my hand out to cancel it. It was almost 12:30. _Only _12:30.

"No. Not at all." He sat back on his heels abruptly. The desk lamp made twin spots of light in his green-dark irises. I nodded at a question he didn't ask out loud, and he reached a hand above his head and back behind his shoulder blades to yank his shirt off in one fluid movement. And I was up on my knees, grasping him to me in the middle of the bed. I had forgotten how good his skin felt.

"Are you?"

"Am I what?"

"Tired."

"No."

His breathing quickened, throatier now, just as his movements slowed. His eyes flickered to mine, then to the edge of fabric where one last button strained to keep my top closed. "That button. I want to bite it off. Is this a new dress…what is this, a shirt? A dress?"

"It's a shirtdress. It's new. From Columbus." I watched him—felt him—put his mouth on the button, playing, his hot breath seeping through. His hands crept up the sides of my legs, pushing the hem of my dress higher. How did he know to rub the flannel against my legs like that? Holy crow.

His mouth humming against my chest sent jolts of heat through my body. "It looks like one of my flannels. Remind me to put you in one of my shirts, B. Hmmm. Let's do it. You can dress as me for Halloween, and I'll be you. I'll wear all brown, head to toe…and your cobalt scarf…"

I thought I could recover from the subtle way my body stiffened when he mentioned Halloween, but Edward froze immediately. His head snapped up, and he saw the expression on my face. And I knew that what he saw was my struggle to hold back tears.

Edward smoothed his hands over my arms and sat me down. "Hey. Whoa. What is it, Bella? What just happened?" He reached over and twisted the knob on the bedside table lamp to a brighter setting.

"It's not…I didn't want to bring it up right away. You just got home."

"Okay, now you're freaking me out. What is this…look in your eye?" His voice pitched higher, and he was grasping at his hair like he was trying to pull out a thick handful.

"Aw Hell, Bella, not you. You're the only person in my life who never looks at me like that. Don't you start. What the hell happened? All I said was you wear a lot of brown…"

"I'm not upset." I didn't want him to think I was insulted by his comment.

"No, I can see that. That's not _upset_. That's…pity. Please don't…you gotta talk to me." His eyes were almost wild with alarm.

"It's just…Halloween. Alice played me a video. She didn't want me to be blindsided by it…and you just looked so…different."

"The Halloween reel. Oh…of course." He turned his face up to the ceiling and scrubbed his face with both hands. "I guess I can imagine how that looked to you."

He swung his legs over the side of the bed and pulled me onto his lap. "I wish I had thought to say something…to give you a heads up. Why didn't you say anything? When was this?" He massaged my arms now, seeking out my eyes, concerned.

I rested my head on his shoulder. "It was Wednesday. I knew you'd be home soon, and I knew we'd talk. You…you looked so happy, Edward."

"I know. But, Bella, I'm happy now." He stroked my back and ribcage gently.

I lifted my head to look him in the eye, and I did see a sort of calm, comfortable happiness there. I smoothed my thumb over his eyelid. It was time to broach this subject once and for all. I squeezed my lips to keep them from trembling.

"Something happened to you, Edward. Compared to the person in that video, I think…well, I think you look like you had your heart broken." I let out a slow, controlled breath.

He seemed to consider this, pursing his lips. His eyes flickered to mine. "Oh, Bella. It's not like you think. If anybody broke my heart…I broke it myself."

"Can you help me understand? Whatever it was…well, it feels like you're keeping something from me. Something too big."

As I watched his face, the worry that governed his features gave way to resolve.

"Of course. In fact," he sighed, "come with me. I don't want to wait another minute. I should have done this ages ago."

He was out of the bed and jamming his feet into shoes, dragging me up with him. "This is my fault. Come on, come with me."

We were out the door and on the road within a few minutes. He stopped to ask if I'd be warm enough in my dress and boots, piled me into the truck, and began driving us toward campus. The parking lot behind the art building was empty when he pulled in from the road, cones of white light spreading from overhead streetlamps.

For a moment, I thought he was taking me to his office, but he steered me down the hall and into one of the classrooms instead. He flipped a switch on the wall and fluorescent lights flooded the room. I looked around me, my eyes adjusting to the brightness. Everything was white—the walls, the floors. Flat-file cabinets lined the walls, most of them doubling as waist-high work surfaces. Various black-and-white prints were clipped to wires along two of the walls. We were in the photography studio.

Edward leaned against a counter, folding his arms, tapping his fingers against his forearms as he blew out a breath in concentration. A heavy click announced the door closing behind us. The chairs were all stacked into piles at one side of the room, so I sat on the counter next to where Edward stood, my legs dangling. He looked at the ground, at the darkened windows, at the cabinet doors to his left—everywhere but at me.

"She was a photographer. Tanya." He took a deep breath, only to let it out again quickly, puffing out his cheeks.

"She came here in June of 2006 for a one-year teaching fellowship. She was very talented. She was…beautiful." He squinted his eyes shut, his fingers pinching the countertop more tightly now. "I'm sorry. I don't know how else to tell this."

"It's okay, Edward, please. Don't edit for my sake. I can handle it."

_Whatever it was_, I told myself, _hearing it would be better than always wondering_. Even so, my heart was racing. I wanted to put my hand on his—to still his fidgeting—but he was so wound up, he looked like he would shoot sparks out of his limbs if I so much as touched him.

"We dated for a while. Four months. It wasn't a particularly serious relationship, but it was a relationship. I was always honest with her. I was faithful; as much as I got around when I was younger, I was never a cheater." His hands were jammed into his pockets. He threw a glance my way, just long enough for me to see the hard sincerity in his eyes.

He fished his key ring out of his pocket and began worrying it with one hand, flipping the keys around the metal loop one by one. He dragged his other hand through his hair, his fingers curled awkwardly.

"I believe you. Edward…what happened? You fell in love, and something happened?"

He huffed and pushed himself away from the counter. He shoved his sleeves up to his elbows, forearms flexing. He turned halfway toward me, not meeting my eye. "Well, that's just it. That's it, Bella. I _didn't_ love her."

I couldn't sort out the cocktail of emotions that swelled up in me. It felt a little bit like dread. He didn't love this person, and instead of feeling relief, I felt sadness. I felt it because it was radiating off of him in waves. I searched his face. No, he didn't love her. _What was it, then?_

"We had fun together. Tanya was…she was my friend. I thought I was a friend to her, too. She even got to know my family. I…I liked her. But it wasn't clicking for me." He looked at the ceiling, then at me. Finally.

"I wasn't in love, and I wasn't going to be. So…as soon as I was sure…I broke it off."

He continued to gaze at me, that ancient sadness present in his eyes. He made no attempt to mask it this time. He was waiting for me to react.

"That sounds like…a breakup, I guess. An ordinary breakup. Edward…how did she take it?" I had an inkling of where this was going, and I wasn't sure I was prepared to hear about the next sequence of events.

"Exactly. That's how it sounds, right? Like a breakup. That was how it felt to me. It wasn't the happiest moment of my life, but it also wasn't the lowest. How did she take it? Well, as it turns out, not so good." There was a dull bitterness seething below the surface now. I could hear it in his voice. It didn't have the sharp and vinegary tones of fresh anger, but instead was sad and blunted, the way black licorice numbs the tongue.

He caught the way his own voice sounded, and softened it. "She took it badly. But nobody knew how badly until it was too late…least of all, me."

I watched as he studied his own reflection in the dark windows and took in a deep, slow breath. He stooped suddenly and unlocked one of the flat files. I straightened my legs at the knees to give him access to the drawer, and he held my calves up with his forearm. He pulled an eight-by-ten print out of the drawer and slid it across the countertop to me, face down. Then he shut the drawer and lowered my legs back down gently.

I lifted the corner of the print, my heart stuttering. It was a portrait. A simple portrait. I picked it up and looked at it. Her light-colored hair was wet, and her eyes gazed into the lens with a peaceful expression. She was smiling. Her face looked bronzed and freckled…young, but a little bit weathered, like she spent a lot of time outdoors. I could see water behind her, rays of sunlight glinting off of the surface. At the top edge of the photograph, framing the shot, I could make out the shape of that mysterious footbridge.

For a moment, I really looked at this woman. Tanya. She was…a regular person. And she was beautiful.

"She loved the reservoir. It was one of her favorite places to take photographs. She kept a tripod hidden in the weeds—that was how often she went back there. The water is a few hundred feet down from where the footbridge is, and the steep climb means it's hardly ever crowded. She loved to swim, and after it froze over she would skate on it, even though there are better groomed rinks in town."

He took the photograph from me and I watched his eyes drift across the print, revisiting its shadows and bright spots wearily. His eyes returned again and again to the upper edge—the bridge. And then he turned it face-down again.

"This is from a series she submitted for a juried show the Brandon Masen Fund sponsored. They were very good, but I removed myself from the decision-making process. And…we fought about it. This was a full two months after we'd broken up, and until this fight we had managed to be on friendly terms. But she really blew up about this juried show. She seemed so intent on being selected. I didn't understand it at all. That should have gotten my attention right there. I mean, her begging me to use my influence just showed why these ethics guidelines exist—why I didn't have a choice but to stay out of the Fund's decision. And, worse than that…it was out of character for her."

I couldn't stop myself from putting my hands on his shoulders, massaging and soothing, as if I could wring the grief out of his voice. He relaxed into it, but only enough to signal that he welcomed it.

He sighed. "In late January…the 30th…I asked her to have dinner, to try to repair the rift, you know? And she agreed. And we had a good talk. We ended the night on a positive note, I thought. She said she understood my reasons for staying out of it, and she really seemed to mean it. She even joked that it would taint her reputation to have an award on her C.V. that could be traced to an ex-boyfriend."

He glanced at me, shaking his head numbly. "I've played that conversation over in my head a few hundred thousand times. She said 'ex-boyfriend,' I'm certain of it."

"And then she had me drop her off at the trailhead. We had just gotten a fresh snowfall, and she said she was going to take advantage of the window of clear weather and get some moonlight shots of the reservoir from the bridge. She asked me to meet her there and walk her home like we used to do, and I agreed. I was glad she was asking me to do it, really, without having to insist. I still cared about her. I didn't like the idea of her walking home alone at night."

He sighed and looked to the ceiling, pressing the heels of his hands to his temples. I rubbed the back of his neck. It was glowing with sweat.

"I was supposed to meet her at eleven. It was a nice night. The moon was big. It wasn't windy or very cold, but a storm was coming—a big blizzard. I made myself wait until ten, because I knew she preferred to shoot alone, but...the storm was coming faster than expected."

His breath hitched, and I prepared myself for what was coming. He seized my hand with one of his, curling it around the top of his shoulder and holding it there.

"You know, it was the strangest thing…as I was walking across the field to meet her, all I could think about was how beautiful the night was, and how wonderful her pictures would be. I felt happy for her. The snow, when it's fresh, absorbs all the sounds of the forest, and all you can hear is wind in the branches of trees. The snow was sifting back and forth…that dry, loose kind that seems like sand dunes. Everything was perfectly still and quiet. I actually stood there and looked at her on the bridge, watching her gaze at the reservoir. I was probably…forty yards away."

He swallowed and let his eyes fall closed. I watched his Adam's apple bob up and down. His whispered voice was shaking now. "And then an owl hooted, and she turned her head, and that's when she noticed me. I smiled at her, but she just looked straight through me. Her face was…so hard and alien. It gave me a chill. And then…she threw herself over the railing, Bella. Without a word. One minute she was staring daggers at me, the next minute she was gone. She didn't scream. It's not enough to say that it shocked me...it was like I was watching TV and the station changed to another story, another life. Nothing connected."

I realized I had thrown my arms around his middle and was pressing my forehead into his neck. "Edward. Oh."

He covered my arms with his own and let me hold him.

"She was...sprawled on the ice, totally still. Three hundred feet below me. I could see the blood spreading. I...I thought I was hallucinating. I guess I did hallucinate, because I don't remember calling anyone or doing anything until I was in an ambulance being treated for shock. They told me later I broke my collarbone lunging at the iron railing, that I called Carlisle on my cell. But all I remember is not being able to move, not being able to get to her. The whole time thinking about the way she looked at me. The way she…made sure I was watching."

The anguish in his voice as he blurted it out was agonizing.

"Oh, Edward, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry that you lost her and that she…that it happened this way." I felt my stomach turn, imagining anyone making such a decision. However angry she must have been, however numb…to involve him in that way was vicious. She had to have known he would take it as a denunciation, a laying of blame.

He pulled me into his arms and set me on the ground, giving himself space to open the flat file again. He slipped the print back into the drawer, locking it up. He put his hand out to me. His eyes were so drained. "There's more, Bella. Come with me."

"No, Edward, just wait a minute. Stay here with me, just for a minute." I needed to feel him here with me in the present day again, not back on that night. I took his hand and held him still, flush up against me. "We're doing this because I asked for it, but you don't need to go further tonight, if it's too much. Not for me. I can wait."

"Well, I can't. I've waited too long already. There's something…something no one else knows about. I've talked about it with my therapist, but I can't bring myself to show anyone who knew her. Will you come see it?" He gazed at me with a matter-of-fact expression. His mind was made up.

I took a deep breath. "Okay. Let's go."

I let him lead me to his office, where he flopped into one of two upholstered chairs. I took in the orderly piles of books and objects scattered around the room. Framed artwork was piled against the wall in a stack. My eyes fell on a bottle of Maker's Mark wedged into a shelf, and I reached up to pull it down. Edward nodded toward a coffee mug on his desk, and I poured a few fingers of bourbon into it.

He took a swig, then sat silently for a moment, gazing into the mug. And then he was on his feet, striding toward the phone. He handed me the mug. I drank. The bloom of alcohol pricked my mouth for an instant before numbness took over.

He poked at buttons on the phone. "I found this on my office voicemail the next day. The time stamp is 9:20 p.m. I really don't want to listen, so…just use the handset, okay?"

I pressed the receiver to my ear. What I heard was mostly static. He paced while I listened. I pressed a key to repeat the message. Her voice was wavering. I think she was crying. I could make out Edward's name, and a few words.

"_Edward…not how it should be…opportunity, this window…__a stranger__…__it isn't fair__...your family…so much love…__you'll understand when you see the photographs.__" _

That was the only really clear thing I could make out._ You'll understand when you see the photographs. _I looked at Edward and replaced the handset in its cradle.

"The photographs?"

He nodded. "They found her camera hanging from the railing, wrapped in her red scarf to protect it from the snow. And as a flag, I guess, to make sure they found it. She never took that camera from around her neck, Bella, especially on an icy day when she might have dropped it in the snow."

"No one has heard this? You said no one but your therapist?"

"No, that's not the part I meant. There was an investigation, of course; it's routine. So the investigators heard this. There was never a chance of me being accused of anything. They just needed to get all the facts out. Of course, there was gossip. With my history, I was a wide open target for all kinds of rumors. People made me out to be a womanizer…a controlling bastard with sick kinks. Like you heard that day outside the student clinic. That shit was the least of my concerns at the time."

He reached for something tucked above some books on a high shelf—a small stack of prints and a white linen box bound together with a rubber band. "These were the photographs that were in her camera."

They looked like test frames—the type of careless, offhand photographs a person would take to evaluate a new lens or filter, or to document a light leak to show a repair technician.

"I don't see anything here. What was there to understand from these?"

"That was my reaction, too. Then I found this." He gestured to the white linen box. "It was on her desk. Sitting there in the middle. There was even post-it that said 'enjoy.' "

He sat down heavily in the chair, and I lowered myself to sit on his lap.

He threw his head back to stare at the ceiling, and I looked at the box. The cover was etched with Edward's initials—EMC—in an elaborate, scrolling gothic font. It was really quite elegant. I opened it and found a pile of twenty or so three-by-five prints. The top few were all text—one word per card.

_This_

_Valentine's_

_Day_

_I _

_give _

_you…_

And then a series of photographs. Black and white close-ups of glimpses of a woman's body: Tanya. It would have been beautiful, under different circumstances. The back of a knee here, an ankle, the crease of an elbow. The milky underside of a breast. My hands were shaking. Edward released a shuddering breath underneath me as I flipped to the end quickly. The final two cards made me choke back a sob: her abdomen, tattooed with the same filigreed EMC from the cover of the box, and then the word…_myself_.

_I give you myself._

I shut the box and shoved it onto the desk, feeling sick. I blinked at Edward. I had no idea where to begin, what to say.

He spoke to the ceiling. "She didn't have that tattoo when we were together."

"No?" I had little hope of soothing him, but nonetheless I swept my hand over his hair.

"No." He sounded so exhausted. "How could I have been so oblivious?"

I dragged my fingers through his hair at the temples, letting my short fingernails massage his scalp. He closed his eyes slowly and opened them again. He looked at me.

"I don't know when she would have gotten it. I have almost no memories of how things were between us—nothing that corresponds to this. These photographs. A tattoo of my initials. Despair, _suicide_. For God's sake. Maybe she had a mental break. Maybe she was obsessed. Whatever it was, I never noticed a thing. All my instincts, everything I ever thought I could rely on…it was for shit."

He was quiet again for a long time.

"I thought I would never be able to trust myself again. I thought it would be better to stay away from people altogether. My therapist, she suggested…she thinks I had a sort of shield in place to keep people from getting close and leaving me like my birth mother."

"Do you think that's true?"

"I don't know. I don't know what to think. All I know is I did something to Tanya that made her crack, to make her decide her last act on earth should be…_cruelty_. And I have no idea what it was I did to her. The warning signs came out afterward, you know. People said she had been behaving strangely, getting drunk in the afternoon. She was coming apart, she was losing it, and I should have seen it. I should have been a better friend to her." I had been waiting for him to break down, and that was what did it. A single tearless sob burst out of him, and he clutched my body for dear life. "I should have paid more attention. I should have seen it. I should have stopped her. I should have stopped her."

He took in a new breath with a gasp. "You saw that portrait. You saw how beautiful she was, how young…how can shit like that happen to someone so full of life? How can there be any joy, after that?" His eyes were boring into me now, his hands massaging my arms. "But there _is_ joy. You make me feel it again, Bella. It hurts and it feels good, but I can't go back to feeling nothing. It's the truth. And it's fucking terrible. The way you look at me sometimes, I feel like you are…ready to hear the truth, no matter how terrible it is. It might make you leave me, but at least you…see me."

He looked me up and down, reading my face and gazing like he was committing it to memory. "So now you know."

"Edward, I wanted to know. Thank you. So much of it is terrible…I'm sad for her, and angry, too, and I'm sorry this is something that happened in your life, but I don't think it's your fault. I don't pity you. And I'm not going anywhere."

I cradled his head against my shoulder, and it reminded me of how things had been when Renee died. Charlie. Phil. I was always cradling heads against my shoulder. I was thinking about the idea of guilt, the way it marked you irrespective of whatever reality said was true. He wasn't to blame, but he _felt _to blame. That was something I understood.

~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.

We decided to ditch the truck and walk to my place, bourbon and fatigue and grief in our veins. At the turnoff to my house, he veered in a new direction, and I followed his lead halfway across the square. And then I saw it. We were headed for the dandelion oak.

Looking up at the tree from below, I could see stars through the bare, veiny branches. Edward hoisted me up carefully, and together we climbed to a nearby branch.

He leaned against the thick trunk of the tree and held me close. "I don't want you to remember this night for what I just told you, B. I want you to remember it as the night I came home to you, and the night you saw this. Will you do that for me? Will you try?"

I nodded my head. I would remember the way his eyes looked right now, the new depth of tenderness they held. He put my hand against a smooth spot where a limb should have been. A ridge of bark surrounded it like a collar.

"An oak tree seals itself off when a limb comes down, did you know that?"

I didn't know that. I shook my head.

"This is called a callus."

Running my fingers along the smooth wood, I felt something then. A carving. And another carving. I bent my head to look. Inside the smooth circle of wood where a limb had been pruned away were a series of initials, some of them inside hearts. A + J…E + C…E + E. That had to stand for Edward and Elizabeth. "Your parents?"

"Hmm. Yes, all of them." He was smiling. "And this is Alice and Jasper. You're not supposed to carve the bark. Even this is…pushing it. But we take care of the tree."

The tears that had been building up in me spilled over then. "I can see that, Edward." He brushed my face with his fingers, then kissed me.

"Yes, Edward. I'll remember this." I laughed a little. I didn't know then—I couldn't have known—that this was a promise that would prove to be among the most important of my life. "I'm tired. Let's go home."

~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.

AN: Thank you for reading. Edward needs your loving support right now…please review!

PS: Check out the twificpimps podcast, where the awesome Althea reviewed Branching Inward in episode 11 last week... It's a cool episode that breaks down all the various fanfiction recommendations blogs that are out there! (you'll need to replace the dots: www dot twificpimps dot com/2010/12/episode-11-rec-blogs-5/ )


	14. Chapter 13: Twenty Minutes

Good morning...thought I'd sneak in one quick chapter before Christmas. Happy holidays, all! Many thanks to my super beta, **happymelt**, and prereaders (and re-readers, and re-re-readers) **midsouthmama **and **faireyfan**. I do not own Twilight.

**Playlist** (see link on my profile):  
Love and Some Verses by Iron and Wine

~.~.~.~.~.~.

**Chapter 13: Twenty Minutes**

"Edward." My voice was raspy, and I coughed lightly to clear it. "Your beard."

The first thing I saw when I opened my eyes, squinting, was yet another reason to love my light-filled bedroom with its wrap-around windows: the morning sun filtered through Edward's unruly bronze hair. It cast shadows on his porcelain skin—his clean-shaven porcelain skin. He was sitting up, awake, already dressed in his cargo pants and tee from last night. He noticed me stirring and slid down to lie at eye-level with me.

"Mm-hmm. I shaved." He moved in to let me sample the goods.

I squirmed at the pleasant sensation of his smooth skin against my cheek. He smelled like shaving cream and soap. "I wanted to watch."

"Eh, it's overrated. Shaving a full beard is a messy process." He grazed his jaw over my skin as he spoke.

"You found a fresh blade, I guess?" I liked the nuzzling, so I did it back to him to see if he did, too.

"Yes. Mmm. Um." He exhaled heavily and rolled his head back, inviting me in. "So presumptuous of me. But you seem to have a decent supply. Good quality, too."

I reached up and palmed his face. He closed his eyes and rolled into my hand, his eyebrows crumpling as the corners of his mouth twitched.

"Well, I gotta say…I like this better. You were inching into Joaquin Phoenix territory a little bit."

"Hmm." He burrowed in closer, sliding his leg up between mine.

"There have been times when I was feeling not so far off from that. It's been better recently, but…you know..." he trailed off. He wedged his fingers into my hair like a comb and held his hand there, massaging my scalp. His mind was on last night.

His brow furrowed, and he smoothed a thumb across my own eyebrow as if seeing his reflection. "I'm glad we talked, you know…I never meant to keep all that a secret, it's just…I hardly knew how to talk about it."

"Well, sometimes just making a start helps. You've given me that advice before, you know—to keep from holding things in." I felt the warmth of his arm around my waist, where my tank top twisted away from my shorts. He kissed the lines on my shoulder where the bed sheets had left impressions.

"I hate the not understanding, all the questions she left unanswered. But…I imagine…to compound it with more layers of secrets might feel worse. If the Government Docs letters I've seen are any indication, Edward, that stuff just eats away at a person…"

"Yeah."

I lost my train of thought, gazing at him straight on. I would never get tired of looking into his warm, expressive eyes.

"What? Look at that smile of yours, B." The grin that spread across his face made my heart stutter.

"I like waking up with you."

He wiggled his eyebrows. "A first—well, just the first in this bed. I won't forget the bonfire, of course. Under the stars. But this feels different."

"Mmm. Are you sad we're not in your bed?"

"No. I don't care." He laughed at something. "I'm sad all we did was sleep."

"You are?" I was never sure anymore what his boundaries were.

"Yes. Of course. Ahh, I mean, last night was…we were both exhausted. But…" His finger made circles on my hip.

I made my own guess at what was coming and finished his thought for him. "But three years is a long time."

He laughed a throaty laugh, and his fingers gripped my hip, skin against skin. His eyes were embers. "Bella, I want you. I don't want to end my drought. I want _you_."

It was as if an invisible string connected us across six inches of air, and I felt it tighten until I was breathing his breath and pressing his soft lips with my lips, my tongue, my teeth. He grunted and returned my kiss, mouth open, lips slack, all tongue and panting and soft biting.

"Uh, that feels like a yes to me."

"Edward. I think you know it is. But you also know we have to hit the road in…when? Pretty soon."

It was Jasper and Rose's shared birthday, and since we were all on fall break this coming Monday and Tuesday, they were intent on a group camping trip. The others had agreed to delay until this morning to accommodate Edward, but they were anxious to head out.

"Do we?" He buried his nose in my hair.

"I think we do. They miss you, too, you know." I briefly considered a quickie, but shut down that idea. Not acceptable. "And besides, you promised me you were back for good, right? We have nothing but time ahead of us."

In my head, a mischievous voice translated that to: _we have a whole lifetime ahead of us_. My eyes widened at the thought. I felt caught off-guard by my own inner monologue.

"You're right, there. Anyhow, Alice already texted me twice." He flopped back onto the bed, shaking his head, and swatted me lightly on the ass. "It's just past nine, by the way. You'd better jump in the shower. Go on."

After a hurried shower, I debated between a skimpy towel and my robe. I chose the robe. We didn't have time for anything that went along with skimpy. I covered up and tiptoed back into the bedroom. Edward was nowhere to be found. I peeked back into the hallway and then my closet, calling his name.

"I'm here, Bella." His voice was coming from the flat roof just outside my bedroom windows—the spot where I liked to sit with my morning coffee.

"Oh. What are you doing out there?" I cranked a second window open and leaned out.

"Cleaning leaves out of your gutters. There's a storm coming through. And this job is easy as long as this stuff is dry." He sat back on his knees, moving cautiously. He scooped brittle debris out of the gutters and threw it onto the lawn below, then wiped his brow with the back of his grubby hand. "And I like helping you."

"Um, okay. "

I heard Alice's voice coming to us from down below. "Edward! I know you're in there!"

"Where is she?" I could hear her, but I couldn't see her. Emmett's van was parked in the driveway between our two houses, half-loaded already.

"I don't know. At the back door, I guess." Then he shouted to Alice. "I'm up on the roof. Show yourself, Tiny!"

Finally I saw her shock of black hair against a backdrop of dull brown grass and twigs. Dark shadows from fast-moving overhead clouds swept over her.

She squinted into the weird half-light and shaded her eyes. If she was surprised to see Edward hanging around on my roof, she didn't show it. "Weren't you going to come say hello?"

He smiled. "Alice, we'll catch up on the drive, okay? It's good to see you, yes."

"Well–oh, hi, Bella! The weather map shows about a twenty-minute patch of torrential rain. As soon as that clears, I'm going to finish packing up the van and we've got to get to it. You guys will be ready? Half an hour?"

Edward rolled his eyes at her for my benefit. He was dusting off his hands, his chore completed. "We'll be ready, Al. Half an hour. Then if we can swing by the barn on our way out of town, it'll take me ten minutes to grab my stuff."

The sky rumbled. I saw Alice wave and make a run for her house. Edward climbed into my room from the roof balcony, narrowly dodging a smattering of heavy drops that began to stain the roof.

He closed the large windows behind him just as the skies opened up and water began crashing down onto the roof and the yard beyond, splattering back up in a white froth. A slate-gray hood of low clouds rushed in to block the sun. I felt the temperature drop a few degrees.

"Wow." I was amazed at the suddenness of the storm.

He looked me up and down, grinning. "I'm going to go wash up."

I checked my duffle bag for wet-weather clothes, just in case. I decided what I had in there was suitable…breathable layers, a hat, a parka.

And then Edward was behind me, his arms around my waist, and he was burying his face in my shoulder.

"Rain delay. I love this season."

"You don't think we'll be rained out, do you?" I was actually looking forward to camping somewhere besides the desert for once.

"No. This seems like a lot, but it's not going to flood us…we'll be in the hills. Besides, the storm is going east, and we're going south." He didn't lessen his grip on my waist.

"Speaking of going south…there's something I've been meaning to do since last night." He tugged and twisted the satiny belt of my robe. He was speaking softly, his voice a low rumble just audible under the hammering rain outside. "Did you think I would forget? Were you going to just let it slide?"

Oh. My. God. I remembered very specifically what he had been meaning to do last night. "Um…let what…slide?"

I leaned my back into him, feeling the broadness of his chest.

Edward threaded a hand through the widening gap between the edges of my robe, cupping my breast. He laughed into my skin, his voice rumbling through his chest. "You know what."

His hands were splayed across my tummy now, my robe a useless drape. I opened and closed my eyes to the wall of rain pounding down outside my window. The morning light was veiled in slate. My bedroom felt so much smaller, like a jewel box nestled inside a thick cloud. I let my head fall back onto his shoulder.

His voice was a warm and resonant contrast to the drone of the downpour. "This is what I call a wet storm."

I nodded, feeling nonsensical. My head was spinning.

He sucked on my neck gently. His hands roamed, skirting the tops of my thighs, and I tried to urge him downward, my hands on top of his hands.

He flexed his fingers to entwine with mine, stilling them. "No. Just my mouth."

Jesus Christ. Cue audible gasp. "Is there…is there time?"

"There's time. Twenty minutes. Maybe I'm overconfident…" The way he clenched my fingers drove home his determination. He certainly didn't seem to be rushing a single thing. His lips crept up the back of my neck to my ear, whispering. "You can tell me in twenty minutes if I've been overconfident."

My legs began to buckle. I was jelly. Talk like this was giving him a head start.

He tugged me away from the windows, walking me backwards, and finally released my waist to deposit me on the edge of the bed. He leaned his weight onto his hands, hovering over me, heat radiating off of him, the mattress yielding.

Floppy bronze hair tickled my forehead. His lips—no, fuck, that was his tongue—grazed the edge of my ear.

Then his breath: "Relax. Let me do this."

He left my earlobe with a soft bite. And then he was making his way down my neckline and chest, pausing where my breasts tented the fabric of my robe. His tongue soaked the blue satin.

"Twenty minutes, fuck. I could spend twenty hours right here. Twenty lifetimes. Rain check, you." He left off teasing my nipple through the robe. I propped myself on my elbows, weakly.

"Do you want to lie back?"

I shook my head, feeling myself blush. "I think I'll…watch."

His jaw hung open briefly. The color rose in his cheeks. His glinting eyes narrowed. And then all I saw was the top of his head, retreating.

I felt his hands encircle my ankles.

"I haven't just been waiting since last night, you know. I've been thinking about this since our day at Sam's farm."

He peeked up at me with a smirk. He was on his knees. His fucking knees.

"Tell me you remember."

"Cullen." My voice was a white flag of surrender. I couldn't manage a conversation.

His hands came up around the backs of my calves, coming to rest in the sensitive hollows behind my knees. Fingers stroked tendons and thumbs dragged across kneecaps.

"Here it is…do you remember me, spot?" I felt a cloud of humid air there. His breath. "Because I remember you. Let's see how you taste today."

His head nudged my thighs apart and his tongue came out to bathe my knee—a world apart from that night in my truck weeks ago—brazen and strong and wet.

It loosed something in me, and I felt an old, pointless restraint fall away. "Ungh. Teeth, Edward. Please."

He pressed his mouth to my knee harder now, bracing himself with his teeth, drawing a sharp line—enamel finding muscle and bone. He grunted. "Fuck, Bella. Always, always tell me. So fucking good."

He was breathing ragged breaths, and I liked it. I gasped to feel him moving against my inner thigh with more urgency, licking and biting and holding himself back to draw out more noises from me. His mouth on the tender skin of my inner thigh was a drug.

And then it wasn't a drug. It was nothing, forgotten, because his mouth moved higher, and _this_—right where I craved him most—was sweet torture, madness and cure knotted together.

"Fuck, Edward! Oh!" The sensation made me lose track of my limbs and propriety and language. And time. Christ, his tongue.

A soft _ah!_ sound from him made me see that my hand was tangled in his beautiful hair, and I willed myself to loosen it. "Oh, sorry!"

His head shook back and forth and I felt him chuckle, vibrations shuddering through my pubic bone, the pressure of his mouth against me increasing and slowing, softening and speeding. My wriggling seemed to spur him on.

Somehow, I began to hear a noise that I identified as my own gasping breath, no longer drowned out by the pounding storm. Edward, between my thighs, slowed his tongue and shifted directions. Counterclockwise now. Sliding so slow and...fuck, I wanted him to stay there for an hour. Or—maybe ten seconds. I wanted to come. My back began to arch.

And then he moaned. He reached and grasped my hands in his, clumsily, connecting. He was sweating. He pressed our clenched hands against my hip bones and I knew he could feel it, too.

He was anchoring me for the final stretch…and when I came, my body writhed like a serpent, quaking, and I cried his name with a shout, my voice faltering and breaking.

Gradually, steadily, the room lightened around me, the deluge outside giving way to gentle rain. His hands smoothed the shuddering of my thighs, his mouth easing me back down to earth.

I blinked, seeing stars. Then I opened my eyes and saw colors.

"Edward." I gasped, "Ahh…rainbow…rainbow!"

I pulled at his shoulder, laughing and certain I had lost a bit of sanity.

"Really, now? That's…very inspired." He smirked, his head lifted, cheeks flushed with exertion and satisfaction.

"No, I mean literally—the sky! You're going to miss it!"

Finally, he turned and saw what I was gesturing at.

"Well. Oh." He laughed and dropped his head back onto my thigh.

I sat up and pulled him to me, pressing my lips to his hair, the back of his neck, his pink, swollen, smiling mouth. He rested his body on me lazily and let his eyes travel over my flushed skin.

We had four minutes left. In four more minutes, Alice would be pounding on the front door, and I would be racing to throw clothes on. I could already hear her down in the driveway debating with Jasper on who would drive the first leg.

But for now, we had four more minutes. Okay, three minutes. He stroked my damp hair, and I murmured soft things in his ear.

Two minutes. I chose to concentrate on his face—memorizing it with my hands, my bliss-tender mouth.

One. His eyes.

A last good-morning kiss. A peck on the lips. And we were up, beginning our day.

~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.

**AN:** Thanks to all of you for your amazing responses and reviews, it truly is a pleasure to share this story and see others enjoy it! Thank you to wordninja_ali who, last week, wrote a beautiful review of Branching Inward at http:/twi-ficpromotions dot blogspot dot com/search/label/Branching%20Inward (take out the dots) - it warms MY heart!


	15. Chapter 14: Wildness and Wilderness

**AN: **My beta **happymelt** and pre-readers **Faireyfan** and **Midsouthmama** are a terrific help. And, wow, big thanks to **feathersmmmm **for recommending this story to her readers! I'll shut up now. Oh, and I don't own Twilight.

~.~

**Playlist:**  
_I Can Change_ by LCD Soundsystem  
_A Heart Needs a Home_ by Richard and Linda Thompson

**Chapter 14: Wildness and Wilderness**

The morning was one long stretch of sunlight, pop music on the radio, and almost no traffic. I sipped that awful truck-stop coffee that somehow seems tolerable on road trips. The hum of the engine and the swirl of air rushing past the windows put me in a sort of trance; cinnamon donuts and Jasper's playlist full of LCD Soundsystem perked me up again. I was excited to feel so welcomed and included, and to have Edward by my side after his two-week absence.

This wasn't my first road trip. I'd taken a few with college friends and had driven from Phoenix to Chicago and back with Jacob once. But without fail, the trips I took as an adult called up early longings for family road trips like those I saw in movies. I had spent more than one school vacation parked in front of the VCR, watching and re-watching the Griswold family's madcap adventures. I snorted at myself, remembering. The Griswolds weren't exactly an ideal family. Come to think of it, I can't believe Charlie even let me watch that movie.

Edward napped for the first hour, a white pillow he'd brought from the barn wedged between his head and the window. His body was angled across his half of the van's bench seat diagonally. One of his long legs was hooked over my lap, his dangling foot waving with every bump in the road. His knee made a perfect rest for my hands. Feeling the hard shape of his kneecap flexing and bobbing through the soft twill of his cargo pants, I decided to add yet another item to my growing list of favorite body parts.

Emmett had ribbed him about the pillow, though I noticed he didn't object to the guitar case Edward wedged into the back of the van. In fact, Emmett threw a keen look to Jasper, riding shotgun next to Alice, launching a sort of pinball game of significant glances among the van's occupants. I smiled, too.

I was enjoying the down time. I had gotten a lot accomplished while Edward was away, so I was under no pressure to work. I did my best to divide my attention between the scenery outside the window and Edward's beautiful, peaceful face. I thought back to our earliest meetings, the ache for _more _that had bloomed so quickly, that grew so steadily. Even now, a fraction of my brain was scheming to pry open those eyelids of his and drink in more interaction, while a warring fraction prayed he'd stay asleep and allow me more of this unabashed staring.

Well. There was the matter of being surrounded by his family, too. Hence the need to play it relatively cool.

I wasn't fooling Rosalie. I was in the middle of admiring the curve of his eyebrows when I looked up to see her watching me with a bemused expression from the bench seat in front of me.

I chuckled at myself, and she laughed gently.

"Hey, Rose. Happy birthday."

"Thanks, Bella. I'm really glad you're along for this trip." She glanced down to my hand on his knee. "Both of you."

"Me, too. You know, I've only ever been camping in the desert, so I'm really looking forward to this. And, of course, you guys. It's fun…seeing you all together." I felt bashful all of a sudden.

"Yeah, I know exactly how you feel. The whole Cullen clan thing…it's not typical, that's for sure." She nodded her head toward Jasper. "Our parents joke that we've joined a cult. A benign cult."

I remembered Rose calling Carlisle and Esme _Pop_ and _Ma _when we were all together the day after the bonfire. I had more or less figured her for an orphan like the others. "So, your parents…are you close?"

"Oh, sure. They're old hippies, travelling the world. There's a lot of love there, but they raised Jasper and me to be pretty independent. Our teenage years were basically unsupervised, and we ran wild. It has its pros and cons."

I had known days like that—weeks, maybe. Never years. "I can sort of imagine it."

"So you can also understand why the Cullens mean so much to me. To us." She gestured, again, toward her twin. Without needing to look, she knew where he was—always.

I nodded.

Edward stirred next to me, readjusting his pillow. He fumbled for my free hand where it rested on the seat back and pulled it to rest on his chest.

"You're good for him." I looked up at Rose; her quiet pronouncement took me by surprise. She squinted her eyes slightly. "And judging by the way your skin is glowing, he's good for you."

For crying out loud. Now that I was blushing uncontrollably, her speculation would only be fueled. With a quick glance at Emmett, who was engrossed in a book and listening to headphones, I decided resistance was pointless. I felt radiant. I let Rose see my elated smile and gave her a silent high five across the seat bench, giggling under my breath.

"Rose. Oh, my God."

And then I heard the distinctive snap of a camera shutter.

"Jasper!"

"What? You had such a nice smile just then." I couldn't decide if he was playing innocent or if he truly hadn't heard what we were talking about. Of course, I had scarcely said anything out loud. It only spurred on my giggling fit.

Edward was coming out of his snooze, blinking and rubbing his chest with my hand in his. "Hey, you. What's so funny? What did I miss?"

"Oh, nothing. Jasper is documenting the road trip."

As if on cue, Jasper snapped another shot—of Edward in his half-awake grogginess.

~.~.~.~.~.~.

My phone vibrated in my jacket pocket. A text from Charlie reminding me to call him about Thanksgiving. I groaned, remembering the way I'd spent last year's Thanksgiving—all the casseroles spread out on Phil's sideboard, contributions from well-meaning neighbors after Renee's funeral. I would call Charlie back another time.

Next to me, Edward rummaged in his pockets, checking and double-checking them. "B, can you call my phone? I need to find it so I can charge it up on this next stretch."

When I dialed him, the ring that sounded from somewhere inside my duffle bag was oddly familiar.

"Oh, right." He twisted to pull the bag from behind the seat.

I smirked at him and snapped my phone shut.

"Edward, is _Sugar Sweet_ my ringtone?" It was a Muddy Waters tune, one of my favorites.

"Yeah." He nodded at me, but his face was a blank. _Why so serious?_ I could see that his attention was distracted by something in my bag.

Curious, I peered in to see what he was looking at. Ah, yes—my box of tampons. Being on the pill meant I could set my clock by my period. Almost. I had about twelve hours before the curse commenced.

What took place next was one of the strangest conversations in recent memory—made even stranger, still, because it was totally silent.

He raised an eyebrow at me, as if to say: _Does this mean what I think it does?_

I cringed and pinched my lips together with a nod: _Afraid so._

He pursed his lips and squinted. He looked into the bag once more, then glanced at me sideways, both eyebrows raised: _I don't suppose you'd consider…_

My own eyebrows shot up and my mouth gaped briefly: _Are you serious?_

He smiled a relaxed smile and watched my face: _I'm not squeamish_.

I widened my eyes: _Oh. Huh._

I looked away from him, biting the inside of my cheek. _Interesting notion._

Then I looked back, half rolling my eyes. This was a family trip. I threw a glance to the sleeping bags and bear-resistant food canister in the back of the van, shaking my head: _No way. Not in the wilderness, with animals in the vicinity._

By now, I was laughing. He reached for my hand and pressed my knuckles to his smiling lips: _Okay. Had to ask._

Alice's voice interrupted us, making us both jump. "What are you two talking about back there?"

"Nothing." We answered simultaneously.

I put my hand over Edward's mouth, partially to stifle his laughter. "Alice, we haven't said a thing."

"I know. That's why I ask." She eyed us suspiciously in the rearview mirror.

Looking forward again, Alice put the blinker on and pulled into a rest stop. We were halfway there.

~.~.~.~.~.~.

Our campsites were clustered together in a secluded part of the State Park. I was surprised to see Carlisle and Esme's car parked in one of the spots when we pulled in, and a small tent set up at one of the sites. I looked for them, but they were nowhere to be seen.

"Your mom and dad are camping with us?" I felt a surprising thrill. _The whole family together—and me, too._

"They came down last night. They're probably off hiking."

Edward started handing me equipment from the back of the van. In no time at all, we had our two large tents set up and were negotiating whose sleeping bags to put where.

Alice explained that Carlisle and Esme would be going home the next day, leaving the third tent with us, so she proposed splitting up into boys' and girls' for now, since we'd have enough tents for each couple to have their own on Sunday and Monday nights. That sounded like the most sensible arrangement. And, as much as I wanted Edward with me, I figured he could use some time with Jasper and Emmett.

Anyhow, we still had the whole day ahead of us. The storm hadn't reached this far south, and we were all eager to explore the trails. On our way up the sloping hills, we met Carlisle and Esme on their way down and made a plan to meet back at the site for an early dinner.

Edward was more relaxed with his family than I'd ever seen him. As we hiked, he occasionally fell back to be alone with me, but he rejoined the group with ease every time. I could see them all adjusting to the difference, too.

Jasper seemed to be keeping a close eye on Edward's tension levels, and he would deflect attention from time to time, bombarding Emmett with questions about the wildlife. Emmett tried to downplay his zoology background, but he knew quite a lot about symbiotic relationships and the ecosystem, and I started to see the forest through his eyes.

What surprised me most was seeing Edward with Carlisle and Esme, later in the day. The four of us were prepping vegetables and meat to roast on skewers—he was wincing at my inexpert chopping technique but resisted correcting me—when he began filling his parents in on the Minneapolis program.

At first, Esme seemed determined to take it all in stride, showing her best version of a poker face as Edward explained his decision to stay in Clearwater. She asked questions about the artists he'd met and pressed him only a little on the basis for his decision.

He watched her coolly from the corner of his eye. "I was thinking Clearwater High School might benefit from a program like the one in Minneapolis. The Brandon-Masen Fund could certainly cover expenses for a few years. And I know enough artists and suppliers who'd be willing to get involved."

"That sounds like a wonderful idea, dear." She paused her chopping and moved a pile of cubed vegetables to the mixing bowl.

"And even though I'll be teaching again next semester, I'll still be able to devote a few hours a week." He was working up to something. Whatever it was, he looked to me for encouragement, and it was all I could do to nod. I trusted him. I knew he could trust himself.

He wiped his hands on a flour sack towel. "I was wondering…Mom…I know it's not really social work like you used to do, but it's with teenagers, so…would you want to be involved? As a co-leader with me?"

She set her knife down and looked up at him, stunned.

Whatever question she was asking him in her mind, he nodded at her and offered a sad smile. "I thought this would be something we could do together."

She nodded, pressing the back of her hand to her mouth and making a quiet _peep _noise. I looked down when he wrapped his arms around her, calming the swell of emotion that poured out of her. I pretended to be engrossed in my task. I wondered how long it had been since he had made such a suggestion. Carlisle, next to me, watched them openly.

Edward made no effort to quiet his voice. "Mom, I've missed you. I need you. Not…not just for this. Okay? And I'm sorry."

I peeked up and found Edward looking right at me over Esme's head where he rocked her gently in a hug, a combination of relief and resolve on his face. I felt so proud of him, and I felt something ease in my own chest—a clasp releasing. His green eyes were glassy and crinkled at the corners. Carlisle clapped his hand on my back and handed me a clean towel, mumbling something about onions. I dabbed my eyes.

~.~.~.~.~.~.

The campfire that evening felt worlds apart from that Indian Summer night weeks ago at Carlisle and Esme's home. We celebrated Jasper and Rose's birthday, serving up cake and singing while Edward and Emmett strummed guitars. We planned how we'd spend the following day, shared old camping anecdotes, and fell into silence, gazing at the fire. Then the boys played songs on their guitars, and I rested my head on Rose's shoulder.

Rose and Alice and I eventually shuffled off to our tent, leaving the boys to their guitars. I bent to kiss Edward good night and was caught off guard by how good he smelled, how far I'd been from him all day. He stood swiftly and held my wrist.

"Hey." He stripped off his sweater and whispered into my ear, "In case you get cold."

Back in the tent, Alice and Rose were lit eerily by the camping lantern. I supposed I was, too, if I could see myself. We hugged our knees to our chests, swaddled in our sleeping bags, and chattered like girls at a slumber party. Strains of acoustic guitar reached us now and then, reminding us how easily sound carried out here, and we quieted our voices. I pushed away my feelings of regret that I didn't have Edward here with me to talk with in the dark, to keep me warm. We had the next night for that.

At one point, Rose stopped and cocked her head. "Is that that Richard Thompson song, _A Heart Needs a Home_? Those boys must be drunk."

I giggled and strained my ears to hear. It was an unabashedly romantic song.

Alice was zipping the tent closed behind her, coming back from the bathroom. "The boys crashed ages ago. That's my Mom and Dad right now. They fucking love this song. I heard it a thousand times growing up."

I snuggled deeper into my sleeping bag, my nose inside the borrowed, Edward-infused sweater. The whole tent seemed to quiet at once, just in time to hear Esme join her vocals with Carlisle's guitar.

_I know the way that I feel about you  
I'm never gonna run away…I'm never gonna run away_

_Never knew the way when I lived without you  
I'm never __gonna__ run away…I'm never __gonna__ run away_

_I came to you when no one could hear me  
I'm sick and weary of being alone_

The song was an old-fashioned folk song from the days when people didn't try to be cool. I drifted off to sleep with the chords ringing in my ears, the words ringing in my mind–thinking of a young Carlisle and Esme coming together, staying together. Never running. _A heart needs a home_.

~.~.~.~.~.~.

I was the last person to stumble out of the tent in the morning, a blanket draped over my shoulders and a frumpy knit hat covering my hair. The cool air felt invigorating after the musty tent interior.

Edward was bent over the campfire, warming a bottle of maple syrup in a water bath. He looked up and winked at me. Emmett had the camp stove set up and was ready to start grilling pancakes. Alice and Rose were slicing fruit next to Esme, who handed me a steaming tin cup of French press coffee. The campfire, the coffee, the orange and apple slices…nothing had ever smelled so good.

"Sleep okay?" Esme was dressed in cut-off cargo shorts and a baggy wool sweater.

"Yeah. I feel good." Misty fog hung heavily in the air. Dew caught the refracted light in the grass, making it glow.

"You and Alice share the same taste in coffee. We were just discussing getting a decent machine for the office that you could share. Your office is in the same hall as hers?"

This coffee was good. "Mmm-hmm. I'm at the end of the hall. My office window overlooks the dandelion oak?"

"I beg your pardon, sweetie? The what?"

I was flustered. I'd only just learned the significance of this tree to Edward's family, and here I was renaming it. "The dandelion oak. I uh…I sort of nicknamed that tree, just in my head. Because it's so round, like a dandelion."

Esme considered this. "You know, you're right. I can see what you mean."

She looked me in the eye, amused. She held an apple in her hand, paused halfway to her mouth. For the briefest moment, mischief glinted in her eyes.

"People wish on dandelions, don't they?" She tilted the apple at me, a type of pointing gesture. "Something tells me your wish has already come true."

Esme punctuated her statement by crunching into her apple, chewing as her eyes danced. I could feel myself turning red, but I wasn't sure why. I didn't know what to say, so I picked up an apple of my own and took the biggest bite I could manage.

I jumped when I heard a surprised grunt from next to me.

"Um…a little help, here?" We all looked to Edward, who was gripping the plastic maple syrup bottle from the bottom, trying to stem a leak with his palm. "I don't know what happened, it just burst."

I sat down weakly on the bench, staring. The way the slanted morning sunlight made his hands glow amber, sticky sweet steam rising off of him in vapors…just like that, he was an oasis of sex, unreachable through this sea of family. I shook my head and swallowed the apple, my head in my palm.

"Hurry up, it's hot." He was grimacing, laughing through clenched teeth.

Rose, guffawing at the expression on Edward's face, held a bowl under his hands and instructed him to let go. Esme put her hand on my shoulder and leaned down. "I'm sorry, hon. Sometimes I can't help myself."

I nodded, half in a daze. Edward was now stripping down to his tee-shirt and wiping syrup from his hands with his flannel. I cringed. _What a waste_. Alice couldn't contain her laughter at the two of us.

~.~

After breakfast, Edward gestured for me to follow him to the water pump down the road. He had managed to get most of the syrup off at the table, but now his hands were seriously dirty.

I pumped while he rinsed. He splashed water on his face, his forearms. He blinked droplets of water away, and his eyelashes…mother of God. I momentarily lost my train of thought.

"How are you holding up? Is this crazy for you? Is Esme too much?"

"Are you kidding? She's sweet. You're the one driving me crazy."

He looked at me from his stooped position and smiled. "Did you hear her singing last night?"

"Yeah."

He grabbed the flannel shirt and soaked it under the stream, rinsing it.

"You know what they say," he teased. "Attract more bears with maple syrup than with vinegar."

"Is that what they say?" I leaned in to kiss his cool, wet face. "I think it's Bellas. Attract more Bellas."

"Oh, right. Well, in that case, mission accomplished. My hands are full with just this one." He held me closer with his wet hands, tickling my face and neck with his day-old scruff.

A full day of being near him, but not _with_ him, was cracking me. I was done trying to share him. This big family stuff was harder than it looked. "Can we ditch the plan, Edward? Let's just bail, you and me, we'll spend the day on our own hike, or in the tent even?"

He pulled back and looked at me. "What? Oh, B, I didn't mean to wind you up." He hugged me again in a more G-rated hug this time, dialing down the electric buzz in the air.

"You didn't. I'm trying to wind _you_ up." But just like that, he shook me off as if I wasn't serious. I was starting to get irritated. Or frustrated. Something.

~.~.~.~.~.~.

It was only a matter of time before the inevitable happened. It wasn't during the four-mile group hike through the hills that I hurt myself. It wasn't while climbing up steep granite inclines, or chopping kindling for the fire. No. It was when I stumbled while tossing the dirty dishwater into a ravine a few steps from camp. My feet went out from under me and I skidded down a gentle, slippery slope of loose soil.

Carlisle and Jasper heard me yelp and came over to dust me off. Edward was off in the woods making conté crayon rubbings of rocks and textures or some such thing, and everyone else had gone to town to buy s'mores provisions and beer. I was more embarrassed than hurt—or so I thought.

Carlisle grabbed his first aid kit and sat me on the picnic table. He inspected my elbow, picking stones and dirt off of it, dabbing blood. I was only now beginning to feel the burn of my scrape. Looking slightly sheepish, he turned to Jasper. "Do you think you can stall him for five minutes?"

It was obvious that he meant Edward. I watched Jasper amble off down the hiking path. "I guess Edward doesn't do so well with the sight of blood."

Carlisle looked up from my arm, searching my face. I realized he was uncertain what to say to me, how much I already knew.

I turned my arm to give him better access. "He told me about Tanya, Carlisle. A few nights ago."

He nodded. "He won't want to see this. But, to be honest, _I _don't want to _see_ _him_ seeing this." He looked up at me.

I got a chill then, thinking of how it must have been for Carlisle to get that call from Edward, to come and find him bleeding and in shock on the footbridge—broken collarbone breaching skin, senseless with anguish. How long had they waited for the EMTs to reach them?

He bent over me, using a tweezers to take out the last few visible specks. "I've been a doctor for more than 30 years, most of that time in the E.R., but nothing prepares you…no parent wants to see their child suffering."

He straightened up again immediately and looked me in the eye, hearing his own words. He put a hand on my shoulder. "I'm sorry, Bella. That was insensitive of me."

He was thinking of my surgery, of Renee. I recalled Charlie at my hospital bed when I was finally lucid all those months ago, forcing himself to tell me how my mom had fared. _It's not good, Bells. _

I wanted to reassure Carlisle, to say _it's okay, no one saw me suffering_, but that wasn't the truth. I just nodded, tears in my eyes.

"This will sting." He clenched my hand, as much to hold me still as to comfort me. He kept talking, distracting me while he rinsed the wound with saline solution. "It's not deep, but we need to clean it out. As long as we keep it covered, keep the bacteria out, you'll heal nicely."

I let out a breath I had been holding. He dabbed antibacterial cream on and finished taping gauze to my arm and suggested I change into a loose-fitting long-sleeved shirt.

"Thank you, Carlisle."

~.~.~.~.~.~.

I sat down with Jasper, who told me Edward was still engrossed in making rubbings and tracings in the woods. The two of us set about assembling packets of hobo potatoes: tin foil square, oil, diced potatoes, seasonings, seal it up. Repeat. As long as I didn't bend my arm too quickly, I felt fine.

Jasper looked at me steadily from across the table. "Edward does get stressed out about people getting hurt. But I wouldn't worry about it. It doesn't seem like he's started to…manage you."

When I stared at him blankly, he elaborated.

"It's his coping mechanism."

"What do you mean? Like, controlling?"

"No, no...it's more like…extreme mothering."

Ah. I had seen hints of this. "He reminds me to tie my shoelaces. Zip my coat. That type of thing."

"Yeah. That's pretty much his default mode. It only gets bad if something tips the scales for him." Jasper set his serving spoon down in the bowl. "Alice says Edward has a sort of infinite capacity to feel…"

I nodded. I remembered her saying something along those lines.

"Well, that includes feeling worry, and fear." Jasper stirred the potatoes and resumed parceling them out into packets. "His response is to try to manage every possible threat. The way he…well, the way he removed himself from our lives was a version of that. The more stress he feels, the more he focuses on this 'managing' of what he deems good for other people…and the more he shuts down his own needs."

He moved on to seasoning and sealing his squares of foil. "And that begins what we call a vicious cycle."

My mind wandered to my exchange with Edward at the water pump, how quickly he diffused my advances. And last night, his barely-suppressed urge to correct my chopping technique. This shed a new light on his three-year abstinence phase, too. I looked up, alarmed, and found Jasper watching my face.

"Listen, I don't know whether he's gonna get bent out of shape about this little injury here. But…I will say that he can be reasoned with."

"Well," I concentrated on creasing the folds of my packet, "that's good to hear."

"I don't think you're the type of person who lets herself be managed."

"No. Not anymore." Not after the year I'd had.

"Good." Jasper mirrored what I was doing, sealing up his potato packets even tighter. "These are going to be delicious."

"I think so, too."

We worked in silence for a while. I contemplated the impulse that led people to be overprotective of others, and where it came from. I recalled how lonely it felt to be left on my own, for even a day, as a child. Then I considered Jasper and Rose growing up with each other, but no one else, wandering wild for long stretches of time. And I thought of the trade-offs this big, close family involved—the care and love they showed one another, but also the sheer volume of effort and energy and hours it took to maintain every constantly changing relationship. It wasn't as easy as it once appeared from the outside.

I froze in place for a moment. It occurred to me: I wasn't on the outside anymore.

I arranged the foil packets in a row. There were eight of them—one for each of us. I cleaned my hands and watched the trailhead, waiting for my beautiful, sexy, complicated, open-hearted Edward to emerge.

~.~.~.~.~.~.

**AN: **Thanks for reading! See you back here in roughly 8-11 days!


	16. Chapter 15: Shared Things

**AN:** Sending special thanks this week my beta **happymelt** and prereaders **faireyfan** and **midsouthmama** for keeping me from losing my mind on this chapter.

**Playlist:** Slow Motion by Panda Bear (see my profile for links)

~.~.~.~.

**Chapter 15: Shared Things**

Well. That was…different. Sort of frenzied and loose. And…hot. Edward's voice still ringing in the misty air, his strangled growl still cementing in my memory, my blood still thundering in my ears, I looked up at him from where I knelt on the damp forest floor.

A bead of sweat trickled from his glowing brow, down his slick temple. He was blinking furiously, mouth gaping, his chest rising and falling with panting breaths. I wiped my mouth with the back of my wrist.

He met my gaze, heavy-lidded, his lashes a fringe. His hands on my shoulders tightened, and he helped me to stand, pulling me into his sweaty arms. I dragged his pants up as I rose, lifting them from where they were pooled around his ankles, belt buckle clanking. Now he was groaning into my mouth with a feverish kiss that only made my heart beat faster.

Edward's broken, breathless voice reached me across mere centimeters of air. "Holy Christ, Bella." A moan, a gasp. Teeth. Tongue. "You know how to drive home a point."

I snapped back to the present for a moment. Edward, behind the wheel of the van, turned his head my way. He took one look at my pink-cheeked smile and answered with a knowing grin. As we rolled along the highway toward Clearwater—toward hot showers and fresh clothes and comfortable beds—memories from the trip played and replayed in my mind, this particular one more so than the others. I reached across the console and grasped his hand in mine.

~.~.~.~.~.~.

I had been sitting at the picnic table, doing some early dinner prep, when Edward returned from the woods with his pile of newsprints tucked under one arm. Jasper had begun to help Carlisle pack up his car, and I was shucking corn on the cob, my scraped and bandaged elbow chaffing just a little. Corn husks and silks littered the table. I shoved them aside and Edward spread his papers out, excitedly pointing out the rubbings and rough sketches he liked best. He was ruddy with energy, with being outdoors, his eyes gleaming.

He took over husking corn, looking over my shoulder while I played around with making rubbings of the husks, following his instructions. All was well for about fifteen minutes, until Edward went to throw a pile of corn husks in the trash and caught sight of the blood-stained paper towels and gauze scraps there.

"What the fucking shit is this? Who–what happened?"

I glanced up and saw him marching back toward our table, the gleam in his eyes dulled. "I slipped and skinned my elbow, Edward. It's nothing."

He reached for my arms, then froze before touching me, fearful of even grazing my skin where I might be hurt. "Where? Show me. Why didn't you say anything?"

"Hey." I reached for _his_ arms then, stilling them. I hated the idea that he would shrink away from me. "I'm okay."

"Is it really nothing?" He took a deep breath. He was asking. He wasn't brushing it off, but he wasn't overreacting.

I sat him down next to me and rolled up my baggy sweater sleeve, slowly. Calmly.

"See?"

"I can't see anything, Bella. It's covered." He squinted at my bandage, hunching his torso low.

"Right. That's what keeps it from being a problem. Just keeping the bacteria out, that's all." The bandage was still white and clean, a three-by-four square.

He was quiet, his eyes darting from my face to my arm and back again, lips pursed. I rolled my sleeve down.

"Bella, what's with the super-calm vibes? Why are you treating me with kid gloves right now? Are we back to this again?"

"Because…you're kind of treating me like a walking accident right now. And I'm trying to show you there's nothing to get worked up about."

He huffed, scanning the campsite for tree roots or errant twigs that might have tripped me. "Just…well, what did you _do_?"

"I tossed the dirty dishwater out and fell down."

He groaned and tossed his head from side to side, grumbling. "I should have fucking stuck around for ten minutes and done the dishes."

I looked at him with my eyebrows raised. "Seriously? And if I twist my ankle on a crack in the sidewalk are you going to carry me from place to place?"

Edward froze and closed his eyes. He rubbed his big hands over his face, covering his eyes for a moment.

"Right. That's what I thought. My so-called 'managing.' Who talked to you? Jasper?" He sighed, looking down at the table.

"Don't change the subject. Yes, Jasper mentioned it. Only because he says it sometimes escalates…badly." I pulled his hand into both of mine.

"So you're going to manage me, now, instead? Is that it?"

It felt like we were having an argument, and I realized that I was…glad. I wanted him to tell me how he felt. Here we were, hashing out our differences as soon as they appeared, not stuffing them down the way my parents had always done—the way I'd vowed never to do again. I had to do this right, I realized.

_Learn how a man fights, little Bell, and as long as he fights fair, don't forget to fight fair right back._ I heard Vincent's voice in my head, the blues organ man from The Checkerboard Lounge back home.

Edward looked at me curiously, noticing the shift in my demeanor.

The van full of Cullens and honorary Cullens was just now pulling up, and I dreaded making a scene in front of everyone. But I needed to finish this with him.

"Edward, I think I saw some blueberries in the woods…for breakfast tomorrow. Will you come with me? While we still have the light?"

I marched off into the woods and he followed me, brooding. We walked in silence for a half mile. I finally steered him into a sort of alcove next to a rock outcropping.

He kicked at the brambly undergrowth, halfheartedly searching for berries, looking down. "Just so you know, I hate that you skinned your elbow. Okay? It's irrational, but I feel upset. I don't like it."

He was such a little boy just then, I didn't know whether to laugh or grasp his silken, sulking head to my chest.

"Edward, there aren't any blueberries. That season ends in September."

There was no use dragging out this ruse. I had only brought him out here for privacy, and he knew it. I folded my arms, but the sting of my scrape jolted me, so I dropped them just as quickly.

He rolled his eyes and shoved his hands in his pockets. He dug his heels into the soft carpet of pine needles and looked at me, bracing himself for an outburst.

"You need to…let go, Edward. You can't always keep everyone safe."

He raised his eyebrows in surprise. I was sort of a minimalist when it came to rants. This was my best approximation of throwing a gauntlet down.

And so he took it up. He raised his arms like goalposts, elbows bent, a gesture of disagreement. "I don't see why not. Who is it hurting? I'm used to it, and I'm good at it. It's comfortable for me."

"I know that it's comfortable. And I like that you look out for me, I do, but if this becomes a pattern…where does it end?"

"A pattern? Of me caring what happens to you?"

"Of you not seeing who I am. I'm someone who doesn't mind making mistakes, Edward. I'm careless about little things because I made a decision…to not obsess about everything all the time. And I don't want you always looking at me, cringing. To be honest, it feels like a sort of…limitation. Of us."

He was quiet for a moment, absorbing. "What do you mean?"

"I mean…as long as you need everything to be perfect and secure all the time, I'm just another one of your projects. At best, I'm a sidekick to you."

He was already shaking his head before I finished speaking. "Now you're exaggerating. You know I don't want you to be my sidekick. I don't see you that way."

"No? What do you see, then? What is it you want?"

His mouth was still set into a stubborn, disapproving line, but his eyes fought to break out of that cage: a spark of animation, indecipherable. He had an answer there, something brewing, but he didn't have words.

I saw my window.

"Because I want…a partner."

As my lips shaped the word, I could almost physically feel the mismatch between that bland, humdrum term and the exposed, naked way it made me feel. I realized I had never said this to anyone—never felt it, never would have meant it.

Before now, that word conjured images of sexless couples in cotton sweaters strolling a beach, holding hands. But at this moment, it meant: I want both of us wrapped around things big and heavy enough to _need_ _both of us_. This thing, _life_. This thing, _regret_. This other _thing_ that I wouldn't say in my mind, let alone out loud.

His hand flew to my wrist—my uninjured wrist. It was a jerky movement, too fast and unexpected. He pressed my hand into his leg, pulling me closer. He stared at our clenched hands as if he had no idea how they got that way, his own needy body betraying his bull-headed mind. He still wasn't saying any words, but his jaw was working like he was trying to crack a tooth.

This resistance of his, if that's what it was—it felt promising. It felt real to me. I was so weary of discussions being bypassed, of cold-and-fast decisions being made like they were nothing…decisions being passed back and forth in my family, or with Jacob, back and forth like a beach ball. _You decide._ No, _you_ decide. _Your decision, I insist_. No, _yours_. I wanted unknowns for once. I wanted to test and try and be mistaken, but _with_ someone. With Edward.

I repeated myself, rolling the word around on my tongue. It came out in a whisper. "A partner. Someone human, like me. Who knows how to fail. How to recover. Not…how to put up a front of being perfect."

He finally tore his eyes away from our clasped hands and searched my face, wary, hesitant. He still looked like he was biting back his words. His gaze travelled down my throat and came to rest on my sternum, the flattened pink tape of scar peeking out of my v-neck. I lifted his hand and placed it there, his cool fingertips giving me goose bumps, the contact making me flush. He looked me in the eye again.

"This is a perfect example. You'll see it every time you look at me. Am I supposed to think it pains you every single time? Are you going to look at me naked in front of you and feel upset?"

He was silent, his face hardening, his eyes flashing now, full of flint. He shook his head. "I see your heart beating. I see it. Right here."

His voice was pitched low, a murmur. My pulse quickened and he stroked his hand up higher, caressing my artery where it throbbed.

"Upset? At this? No." His lips were inches from me now. "And when I look at you…naked in front of me? Don't you dare. You will never know half of what I see. I can show you for the rest of your life what I see, what I feel, and you'll still never know."

And…oh. Just like that, I was putty. Wet clay. His hand moved down my chest, one finger drawing a line over my sweater, divining my nipple through layers of clothing and bringing it to the surface, hardened.

He lowered his head, pressing his lips to my neck, and I knew that I had about ten seconds before I would be worse than putty in his hands. I would be jelly. Were we done discussing this? His mouth was moving against my skin, slow and insistent all at once. _Never know the half of it. Never. Never._ Convincing me. And so I let myself be jelly. I kissed him there against the mossy rock wall until our lips were numb. And then, exhausted, he rested his forehead against mine, leaving his hands in my hair, thumbs resting on my cheekbones.

I nodded my head, unsure what question I was answering, but telling him yes, always yes. He smiled and tugged at my hair, straightening up to look at me. His eyes were warm and syrupy. "It's easier with you, you know. Letting go."

"Do you really remember what it feels like to let go, Edward?" I pressed myself close to him, enjoying the heat of his body radiating through me.

"I remember." He was smiling softly. He was my Edward now, his grumpy mask discarded.

I knew then what I wanted. We weren't done here, not by a long shot. My hands moved. He closed his eyes and opened them again, just barely now. He wasn't moving a muscle. And then he swallowed. When I saw his Adam's apple bob up and down, I realized he knew what I wanted, too, because by now my hands were unbuckling his belt, unzipping and shoving twill fabric aside, pushing boxers down. I felt a pink blush begin to creep up my neck, and I watched his eyes track it, clouding.

He didn't stop me when I wrapped my hands around him, smooth and hard, growing harder still under my touch, and he didn't say a word when I dropped to my knees in front of him.

I looked up at him, a thrill of adrenaline surging through me, seeing no protest, no urging me up or putting me back on a pedestal. Instead he wove his fingers into my hair so softly, tenderly, at my temple. He massaged his thumb into my scalp for a moment, then gathered my hair into a thick rope and tucked it into the back of my shirt, out of the way.

He released a shuddering breath, the sharp angles gone from his voice. "I want to see your face."

I braced my hands against his solid thighs. His fingers grazed down my cheek, coming to rest at my lips. With a rush of heat up my spine and down between my legs, I realized he was holding back from pushing his fingers into my mouth. I snaked my tongue out to wet them, slackening my jaw and feeling his fingertips graze my teeth as he hissed.

His voice broke as he pushed words out in a fast, sharp exhale. Instead of "_Are you sure?_" it was "_Please, Bella_." The want in his voice, in two little words, spurred me on, setting my senses on fire.

In answer, I closed my mouth on his fingers, a featherweight of pressure, drawing them in with my tongue. My eyes rolled back at the _nnnhh _noise he made. His fingers moved in my mouth, pushing, growing rougher as I swirled my lips around them.

And then I dropped my eyes.

His cock. Oh, Christ. I blushed at how quickly the word occurred to me, but this was a fucking _cock_. And I was about to…I had no idea, really. The things this man brought out of me, there was no telling what I was capable of doing at this moment.

I watched him pull and stroke himself once, twice. Then I covered his hands with mine and held him still, eager to be in command of this, willing him to _let go_. I pressed his hands flat against the stone cliff wall.

His words, riding on the backs of panting breaths, were sweetly encouraging—_just like that, yes, fuck yes, your mouth feels so fucking good_. It relaxed me and set me loose to explore. I felt bolder as I got to know the size and heft of him, the way the blood coursing through him quickened under my tongue.

And then his words failed him. Suddenly, something I was doing—here, there, this pressure, that slickness—made it so low groans and gasps of surprise and pleasure were all he could muster. He felt so good—slippery and silky, so solid. His body stiffened against the cliff. I peeked up to see him watching me with furrowed eyebrows, his mouth open. Seeing me differently. And this ultrasensitive patch of supersoft skin—here—oh, God, it was undiscovered territory for me, a trigger for him. When I swept my tongue across it, he was reduced to the choked snarls of an animal, triggering my own visceral instincts. I pictured his face looking like that when he fucked me; I imagined him making that noise. How I wanted him like this, the opposite of politeness and self-control—edgy, desperate.

I realized all at once how close he was to tumbling apart. A sudden impulse overcame me—and a memory of his voice: _three years, Bella_. I didn't want to make him come so soon. I needed to make this good for him. Instead of speeding up my tongue like I knew he wanted and tipping him over the edge, I slowed my pace and loosened my lips, keeping him at the brink for another unending minute.

His noises stopped altogether. He held his breath, clenched his eyes shut, struggled to stay standing on quaking legs. I watched his fingers white-knuckle against the granite rock wall, loose pebbles crumbling to the ground.

_This is what I mean, Edward. Just let go. _

There wasn't a single impulse in his body trying to manage me now. And nothing was more erotic to me in the world than the idea that Edward was giving himself over to pure sensation—floating in that no-man's land of pleasure, caught between desire and release. Right now, I knew he was feeling every flick of my tongue, every stroke of rough and smooth surfaces, the long and slow wet passes and the pull of my mouth up and down and around him. His hand on the wall clenched and unclenched, leaving a sweaty print behind.

I couldn't suppress my own moaning now, and with quickening, swirling strokes of my hands and tongue, I urged him past that point until every part of him released—pulsing, quivering. His groaning, gasping voice echoed through the forest. All at once, the sound and trembling and taste of him fused together, lodging in my memory, permanent and new.

When he tugged me to my feet, I could barely stand, my legs boneless with my own desire for him. The two of us collapsed against the rock wall and Edward's strong mouth was on me—silently, then noisily, our teeth clicking together. He fussed over me overtly, laughing at himself, straightening my clothes and smoothing my sweaty hair, holding me tight, whispering.

For the rest of the night, we orbited one another, ignoring the sideways glances of his family, in our own private world. We said goodbye to Esme and Carlisle after dinner, then Edward pulled me onto his lap while we all roasted marshmallows for s'mores and drank beer. We half-listened to Alice and Emmett crooning along with Jasper's guitar. When the sky finally went black and starry, we brushed our teeth and splashed cool water on our faces and retired to our tent.

Edward zipped our two sleeping bags together into one bag for the both of us and we stuffed our flannel-clad selves inside, keeping our voices low as we talked and finally drifted to sleep listening to singing and acoustic guitar from the campfire a few yards away from us.

~.~.~.~.~.

Some hours later, in the still-dark early morning, I was awakened by Alice's voice outside the tent, a stage whisper.

"You guys. We're all going to watch the sunrise at the ridge. Remember? Are you coming? Guys?"

I turned my head toward Edward to see if he was awake and saw that his hand was reaching to cover my mouth, his other hand in a silent _shhh_ over his smiling lips.

After a moment of waiting, Alice's steps retreated away from the tent. As soon as we heard the van doors close and the engine rumble to life, Edward was on top of me, all strong lips and open mouth and gentle teeth. We rolled together and shifted our bodies on the hard ground. It felt good to make noise in the middle of the empty campsite, unconcerned about anyone hearing us now.

Soon the first hints of pre-dawn light were leaking through the tent walls, giving everything a soft, cool glow. Edward pulled me to lie on top of him.

"Are things still…off limits?"

I chuckled. "This is only day two. So, yes, three more days."

"Right. Okay. Um…" His hands wound their way up under my pajama shirt, running along my spine. "Oh, you're not wearing a bra."

"To sleep in?" I rose up, feeling his hands drift down to my waist again. I nestled my hips against his where I straddled him.

"Hmm. Guess that makes sense."

I put my hands over his and helped him lift my shirt up and over my head.

Edward was silent then, stock still, gawking with a dazed smile on his face. The cool air felt nice.

"Christ." He whispered under his breath. His thumbs pressed into the curve of my hips. "Don't move, I'm memorizing this."

I was content to watch his face, the way he unabashedly raked his gaze over my body.

He placed a hand over my bandaged elbow, softly. "Tell me if it hurts? If I get…excited, I might not be aware of it. Promise me?"

I nodded. He nodded.

Edward lying under me was slow-moving, full of intent and self-control. He brought his hand up to splay it across my sternum, dragging it down between my breasts, teasing their inner curves with his pinky and thumb. My nipples were hard.

"You're not cold, are you?"

I shook my head no. He brought his hands up to graze and cup my breasts. His thumbs brushed across my nipples, and my back arched. That was when he snapped out of his transfixed daze, rising up suddenly and adding his mouth to the mix, pulling in sharp breaths and making me moan. His lips and tongue were all over me now, gathering new textures and sensations, leaving behind impressions in my skin's memory. I was dizzy. Heat surged through me, tinting my chest scarlet.

His hands pressed me from the front and back, one at my sternum, thumbing my scar, the other between my shoulder blades. He moved his mouth against the swell of one breast, then the other.

I wasn't used to Edward wordless like this. He was watching me, though, and listening. He rocked me against him, finding a place where the pressure and weight quickened both of our breaths.

When he spoke, it was to egg me on. "Make all the noise you want. Nobody's around."

I twisted my torso, relishing in the feeling of his hot, wet mouth everywhere.

By now I was moving against him fervently. I could feel him long and hard under layers of thin flannel. I flipped my hair off of my face and caught his eye, checking in with him, breathless.

"Is that too much friction for you? The fabric?"

When he hesitated, I reached my hand inside his pajamas.

His eyes fluttered closed, miniature spasms of relief. "Yeah, that's better."

With a little contorting, still breathing hard, I maneuvered my hips and hand to a new arrangement.

"Edward, can you try…your hand, here?" I guided him.

"Like this? Yeah?" His sweaty brow furrowed. So earnest. Christ, he made it so easy to show him what I wanted.

I whimpered in response, and I rocked, and I moaned.

"God, you like that, don't you?" He was watching my breasts move as I arched and pitched on top of him.

My face was flushed. My eyes wanted to close.

Edward started talking again, words pouring out of him. His hands were strong and eager all over me. "You're so fucking beautiful. I want to see your face light up like this when I'm inside you. Dammit, Bella, I've started to need you so much. The way you respond to me. What you draw out of me. Everything. I need to show you. I need to know you feel it, too."

His words, his voice—this new vulnerability in Edward was cracking open a crevice of need in me, too. I understood the pleading in his voice. His eyes were like I had never seen them, solemn and probing.

"Edward. I…you're so…please."

"Fuck, yes. Let it all go. Please, Bella."

I was coming undone. I could feel him grow harder in my hand with each erratic movement, every noisy breath. I could feel my nerves tightening and gathering at the base of my spine on that slope toward release. When I came, I brought his free hand to my mouth to press his palm to my lips, his fingertips to my eyelid.

And with that, at the tail end of my long orgasm, I felt him come apart beneath me, thrusting into my hand. His thumb was in my mouth now, an echo of yesterday. He rose up to attach his lips to the pulse in my neck. I realized I was groaning out his name.

As he pulled me down onto his chest, I tucked my head under his chin. I could get used to seeing his chest rising and falling like this, his heartbeat pounding frantically like this. I burrowed my face into his arms, breathing in deeply.

Edward was different with me now. He'd only been back from Minneapolis for a few days, but each passing day seemed to change him, to bring new qualities to light. Sometimes, when I saw a new layer revealed, I felt almost desperate to know how deep it went, how much more there could be. Then again, I wanted to savor his every mood, every facet.

My favorite moments were when he didn't know I was watching him—the little things, the things he wasn't trying to show me. Once in a while, those moments came when we were together like this, when he seemed to push his façade aside and give me a glimpse of who he was, through and through.

I don't just mean the bare ass he showed me when he got up and changed his pants. I'm pretty sure he knew I was watching that, anyhow.

Before long, the two of us were nodding off again, burrowing down into the blanket warmth of the sleeping bag. I knew that we would have to leave the tent eventually, to rejoin the family and the world, but I felt more certain than ever that when we did, we would do so as a team. As if he could read my thoughts, Edward tightened his arms around me, humming.

~.~.~.~.~.


	17. Chapter 16: Various Disguises

**AN:** My beta **happymelt** saved this chapter from disaster in so many ways. And **midsouthmama** and **faireyfan** kindly (very kindly) pre-read! The quote Edward reads aloud is from the short story "A Tree, a Rock, a Cloud" in _The Ballad of the Sad Café and Other Stories_ by Carson McCullers...no infringement intended!

**Playlist**: Nothing Like This by J. Dilla

**Chapter 16: Various Disguises**

I'd been staring at the email _Send_ button for I don't know how long. For the umpteenth time, I reviewed the wording of my request to Angela, scanning it for anything that seemed out of the ordinary. The more I assured myself that my request _appeared_ to be on the up-and-up, the more I had to admit it was not, in fact, on the up-and-up. There were no two ways about it; I was trying to learn Tanya's secrets.

I sighed and looked out the window.

Analyzing the anonymous Dear Government Documents letters was part of my job, certainly. I was legitimately interested in them as a research pursuit. Using their content for my own purposes, however, was less valid. Some would call it borderline unethical.

There was only a very narrow chance that anything from the archives would connect back to Tanya in the first place. I rationalized that I was only trying to discover any such material now, when I could be prepared for it, rather than come across it unexpectedly later. If I did find something relevant, well, the real question would be what to do with that information—whether to share it with Edward, in part or in full.

One thing was clear to me: I hated the shock and grief Edward felt, even now, at Tanya's choices. As much as I could see him coming back to life, this ache had a power over him that he seemed to have no way of defeating. In her last moments on earth, she had acted out of anger and hate, and he would never know why.

I felt an affinity for the seed of self-loathing encapsulated somewhere in his heart, because its twin was in me. I wondered if I had somehow sensed it in him the first moments we'd met—the first moment I'd seen him, even, that wintry day I'd watched him seek refuge in the tree.

His words came back to me from a conversation we'd had about the Dear Government letters—and the secrets they held—the first time he brought me to his home. _I would want to know the truth_.

The dandelion oak below my window glowed amber, its branches undulating in the wind. The tree's oval shadow slanted across the meticulously landscaped lawn in the autumn sun. Even though it was early on a Saturday morning, a groundskeeper was hard at work piling dead leaves into a mound. These would find their way into the upcoming Halloween kick-off bonfire—a ritual of purging and renewal.

I turned back to my computer and clicked _Send_.

~.~.~.~.~.~.

An hour later, my errands done for the day, I was at home, bundled in a blanket on the roof deck outside my bedroom windows, enjoying the crisp, cool air and the rusty spectrum of dwindling fall leaves in the forest.

My mind wandered to Edward, hard at work at his installation site. After being away for so long in Minneapolis, then camping, he had been working nearly nonstop. He would call me from time to time, excitedly sharing some progress he had made on an idea, or a construction technique, but without ever really revealing details of the project's look and feel. I was able to set aside my curiosity because his pure enthusiasm was so satisfying.

Edward was coming over when he finished for the day, and from here, we would head to Alice's dance performance and then to a faculty Halloween party. Newcoven's Halloween celebrations lasted a week, and tonight's kick-off was supposed to be quite a spectacle…and it would be Edward's first time attending in several years.

I felt butterflies in my stomach, anticipating what the night would be like for him, hoping he would be able to relax and enjoy it. People would be staring—maybe gossiping. I tried to keep my mind off it by reading, but bird calls and the rustle of wind in the trees distracted me. I set the book aside.

Honestly, the bird calls only distracted me because they made me think of birds and bees, and bees made me think of honey, and the combination of the three launched a new round of the micro-fantasies that seemed to dominate my brain these days. It wasn't like we had set an appointment, but sex was on the unspoken agenda for the weekend. It was almost all I could think about. What if I drank too much at the party? What if he did? I was annoyed with my own plotting of how to manage him. He didn't want that, and neither did I. It made me roll my eyes.

I trained my focus on the trees in the forest instead. We were past the peak of fall colors now, with more and more bare branches framing the occasional bursts of brilliant red and yellow. It meant that the sun shone straight through, lighting up places that had been veiled in shade since the spring. I knew the expression _turning over a new leaf_ had to do with the pages of books being turned, not actual leaves of trees, but I preferred to think of trees as being on an endless quest for self-improvement, giving up their old leaves and storing up energy for next year's leaves, even if that meant a few months of bare ugliness.

My neglected book slid down the slope of the roof and tumbled to the ground. I shrugged it off, vaguely hoping it hadn't landed in a puddle of mud. And then the book reappeared, sailing back onto the roof from down below, landing with a _thwack_. I grinned, hearing footsteps crunching on dead leaves. Edward.

Watching his rusty mop of hair appear as he climbed straight up onto the roof, I felt my smile grow wider. In my head, a Wild Kingdom-style voice began narrating the scene. _A strong and limber creature, the inquisitive Edward takes the shortest available route to reach his target, once he locates it._ I laughed at myself silently.

"I had a feeling I'd find you here." He crawled over and kissed me hello. "Hi, you."

I was momentarily rendered speechless by his cheerful face. He squinted in the bright light reflected off of the window panes, and his pupils shrank to pinpoints. He was all pale green irises and softly creased skin.

He glanced at the cover of my book. "What did Carson McCullers do to offend you?"

"Oh, nothing. Just failed to hold my attention on a day like today." I stretched my limbs out like a cat in a patch of sunlight and lifted my blanket so he could join me.

"Really? I'm surprised. Maybe you just need a narrator." He picked up the book and flipped to a page near the end. I was a little bit stunned by how quickly he found the page he wanted.

He started reading aloud. _"There were these beautiful feelings and loose little pleasures inside me. And this woman was something like an assembly line for my soul. I run these little pieces of myself through her and I come out complete. Now do you follow me?" _

"Bella, if that's not holding your attention," he paused to nibble my ear and the side of my neck, "something must really be distracting you."

"Uh huh. Okay, Cullen." I wanted to scoff, but I was enjoying this too much.

"I'm not keeping you from anything important, am I? Are you ready for tonight? Got your costume?" He spoke into my shoulder, extending my arm out and pulling the sleeve of my dress up.

"Yeah. I'm all set." I liked his way of carrying on a conversation without ever lifting his lips from my skin—especially this sensitive skin at the inner crease of my elbow.

I also liked how readily he took suggestions. "Do that again."

"What, right here? Oh yeah, that's a good one. Try that on me, will you? One day soon?"

I giggled, slightly ticklish and giddy at the prospect.

"What about you? Have you got your costume sorted out?"

He huffed in mock indignation. "This is me you're talking to, remember? Compared to what I used to get involved in…one costume is the least I can do."

His face clouded over and he looked at me, conflicted. "That came out strange. I think I mean: yes, this is a very doable step."

"Are you worried about Alice's performance? Or seeing everyone at the party?"

"No." He considered this for a moment. "Well, I'm only worried that you might be on the receiving end of some weird looks. People who…only know the rumors."

"Hmm. I'm not worried about those people, Edward. They'll get to know you again, with time."

He took my near-empty coffee cup from me and reached through the window to set it on my desk. Then he was back to nuzzling my neck, not even kissing me, really, just running his nose along my throat, nestling into my hair. Okay, now he was kissing me again. Those were his lips at my throat. The wet edge of his tongue.

My hands were free to reach inside his coat, my fingers stretching the neckline of his sweater, feeling for his collarbone. He shifted his body so he was hovering over me, holding his weight on his arms while keeping his balance on the slanted roof. It wasn't a very far drop, but even still…my nerves got the better of me. I gripped his arms.

"Don't stop, don't stop. Just…please don't fall off the roof. Be careful. I'll never forgive myself."

His breath was hot on my skin. "Mmm. You know me by now, B. I'm all about slow and careful."

I chuckled. This was true. Too true. "Yeah. Silly me."

He stilled for a moment, his mouth frozen on my collarbone. His head rose up slowly until he was looking me in the eye. The row of glowing window panes behind me reflected in the glassy orbs of his eyes, his lashes casting their own spidery shadows. Something flickered there—a sharp clarity, the facets of a gemstone. His pupils dilated.

Suddenly I felt the cold air whoosh over me, the blankets gone. Edward was shoving them through the window, along with his coat. He turned back to me, pulling my arms up, pointing me to the window and the warm channel of heat that was rushing out of it.

"Come on. In you go."

"Where are we going?"

He clambered in after me and swept the window closed with a clatter.

"Right here. Slow and careful is finished."

The words were barely out of his mouth when he was upon me again, all of his limbs moving in a disorganized commotion, stumbling the two of us toward the bed, dropping us down onto it and kicking off his boots. Realization dawned on me as I gasped, sucking mouthfuls of air through the fabric of his sweater.

Oh, god. Suddenly the expanse of the long afternoon stretched before me, a vista of opportunity. _We had all day free_. I sprang to my feet, a whole new sort of nervous energy surging through me. I needed to know this wasn't a false start, or I would lose it.

"Are we…are you sure?"

He locked his gaze on me, his mouth curling up. There was a streak of wildness in his eyes, something I'd seen just a glimmer of before now, and a storm began brewing low in the pit of my stomach. Christ. He reached for my hands and pulled me to stand in between his knees, then kept pulling, wrapping his arms around my thighs, burying his head in my chest, kissing the hollow of my throat.

"This slow and careful business…I gave you the wrong idea about me. I need to correct that." He groaned, cupping my ass and trailing up to my shoulder blades and back down again. Now he breathed into my neck. "Yes, I'm sure. I hope you never have to ask me that again. I'm sure."

He pulled me closer, loose-lipped and open-mouthed. Yeah, that felt like _sure_ to me. _Holy shit._ Desire coursed through me. I bent my head and kissed him sloppily, recklessly, light-headed. Waves of heat rose off of his body, carrying his heady tea and clean laundry scent my way.

His hands found the backs of my knees and slid up my thighs, this time lifting the hem of my dress. His hands came to rest on my ass, slipping under the edge of my underwear now. Fingers twisting the lacy fabric, he peered at me with a wry smile.

He cleared his throat. "Thank you for wearing a dress today."

My hands were entwined in his hair, and I loved the way he leaned into the pressure of my fingers. I couldn't help my own smile.

I struggled to keep my voice steady. "I guess I must have wanted this."

He raised an eyebrow, playful, and then his face softened into something infinitely more tender, hearing the truth of what I was telling him. He nodded.

Under my dress, he flexed his wrists, tensing the lace of my underwear, dragging it down past the swell of my ass. The pads of his fingers pressed into my flesh gently as he went, drawing soft lines down the sides of my hips and thighs. His head cocked to the side and his brow furrowed as he tracked the movement of his arms.

When he caught sight of the blush-pink lace tangled in his hands emerging from under the hem of my dress, his eyes fluttered closed. I watched his Adam's apple move under the skin of his throat, my own heartbeat quickening.

As I lifted my knees and stepped out of the underwear, resting my hand on his shoulder to keep my balance, he looked up at me.

"Fuck, Bella."

More quickly than I could have expected, he pulled me up onto the bed and I was straddling his lap, one of his hands in my hair and the other bracing my back, his lips moving wetly along my throat. My dress was hiked up around my waist.

He smelled so unbelievably good. How had I ever kept from tearing his clothes off? And so I lifted his sweater and shirt together in one warm bundle, tossing it to the ground. The pent-up heat of his skin washed over me.

I watched his muscles flex as he strained up to reach me. I realized I hadn't relaxed completely and was still hovering on my knees above him.

He stilled himself, searching out my eyes. "What is it? Why are you holding back?"

"I…your pants. I don't want to get your pants all…wet."

That did something to him. The streak of wildness I'd seen in his eyes took over now, and he grasped my torso to his naked chest, pulled me down until I was grinding against him, my legs splayed to either side.

"Fuck my pants."

He scrambled to unbuckle his belt, easing it away from where it might dig into me, unzipping his fly, and I could feel him hard beneath me through the thin fabric of his boxers. This time, I let myself imagine what it would feel like riding him, taking him inside me like this. His hands snaked up inside my dress, circling my shoulders, pulling my flesh closer.

I took my hands away from his hair to unbutton my dress and he stopped me with his mouth, biting my knuckle gently as he laughed.

"Don't. I want to do that." I could feel his whispery breath on my fingers. "Put your hands in my hair again."

I did it, watching his eyelids flutter as I tugged. He untangled his hands from my dress and brought them up to work at the buttons. All of a sudden, it seemed like he was moving excruciatingly slowly, rocking underneath me the whole time. His hands were shaking a bit.

"Ahh–ohmygod." I took a deep breath and arched my back to make the button placket more accessible, watching his face.

The look of care and concentration there was driving me out of my mind. His eyes flitted to mine, irked, and then he freed the third button and pulled the dress up over my head. My bra was the last to go.

"God, Bella…finally."

He alternated between pulling back to look me over and dipping his head down to graze his lips and tongue across my collarbone, my chest, my right nipple, cupping my breast from below. He smoothed his fingertips along the pink marks left by the bra seams as if he could wipe them away.

He smiled, eyes brightening at a new discovery: while the narrow strip of scar tissue along my sternum was numb, the skin bordering it all along either side was extra sensitive. He dragged his tongue along it now, wide and flat and slow, then probing, then teasing. The whimpering noises I was making seemed to make him more confident, more brash.

"Lie down." I pushed him down onto the bed, grazing my breasts along his chest and kissing him hard, needing to feel his breath on me, his tender-rough lips.

He groaned into my mouth.

The soft vibration of the sound went straight through me, making me gasp. "I love the way that feels."

He did it again, louder this time, and sucked in air through clenched teeth. "I know. I love that you love it."

I lifted my hips off of him for a moment as he wriggled out of his pants and underwear. He was as flushed and pink as I was now—and as naked. My knees framed his ribcage and I held myself up on my forearms. His face was inches from mine.

"So, how do you want…"

"Just like this. Exactly like this. Is this okay for you?" His voice was faltering now, shaking.

"This is perfect. Oh, God."

His fingers clenched my hips. "Ah–I know you're on the pill, but…condoms? I have some."

"No. Just you."

We'd had the histories-and-risks talk by now, and I knew this was safe. Thank God. And with that, he eased me against him, the slickness between us amplifying the shock of _hard _and_ big _and_ right there_.

"Eeahh, yes." The blood was rushing from my head. I was already flexing myself closer, angling, rocking.

He grasped for my hand with his. "Come here. Come here. I need to tell you…."

He pulled our twined hands up between us, bringing the back of my wrist to his mouth. An image flashed in my memory: his fingers on my arm at the dinner table. _Stay. Pie. _

"The first time I touched you, Bella…," he gasped, eyes straining to stay focused on mine as he grazed my wrist along his face, "your skin lit me up. It still does. Every time. I want you so much."

This man. I couldn't speak, couldn't make a sound. I blinked away the tears that came to my eyes, squeezing his hand, nodding.

I shifted and felt him slide against me, and he took in a sharp breath as I positioned myself over him. My hair fell onto his face and I shook it away. He wrapped his free arm around my waist and urged me down, clenching his jaw. At the moment I felt him enter me, his eyes locked on mine, he snaked his tongue out to mark that spot on my wrist bone, that place where his finger had lingered those weeks ago.

I shuddered, moaning loud at the onslaught of sensation, my voice a hoarse cry. It was like a live wire wound its way through me, more warm neon glow than hot white jolt, streaming under my skin and heating my limbs from within. I pressed my trembling fingertips to his lips, anchoring myself to this soft counterbalance to the hardness inside me. I wanted him to know I felt it, too. So much.

I rested my forehead on his and gulped mouthfuls of air, arching my back and tilting my pelvis to accommodate him, again and again, writhing when I felt my whole body pressed flush against him, finally, finally.

"Jesus, Edward. So good. Oh, God."

He wasn't forming coherent words now, only grunting and sucking in air, nodding erratically. When I peeked at his face, his eyes were gleaming, rimmed with pink, and he blinked rapidly, tightening my hand in his. _Oops._

I slowed down and his eyes refocused, his breathing growing more regular.

"That okay? You were pretty close, huh?"

He nodded and shook his head in quick succession. "Christ, I feel like a teenager. Yeah, okay now. I just didn't expect…I'll be all right now."

I brought his hands up to my breasts, distracting him. The way he started stoking me was very un-teenager-like. And then his mouth was involved, and his hot breath, and I couldn't keep my hips still. His hands strayed from my breasts to my ass, and he thrust with me, setting an agonizing slow rhythm.

He pressed a palm to my stomach and urged me to sit up again, gaining access to reach down and press a thumb against me. "Right here, yeah?"

"Yeah. Slower," I whispered, "for now."

My head rolled back and up again, my low spine arching. In the streaming daylight, the lines of his body stretched and tightened beneath me, his muscled forearm tensing and flexing against his abdomen.

For a moment he watched me above him, his heavy-lidded eyes drifting and darkening with every roll of our hips. I reached up to pull my hair back out of my face, twisting it into an improvised knot.

His lips curled up as he gazed at me. His breath was shallow, his voice low. "You know I like that. I wish you could see how you look to me right now."

His hips moved more frantically now. His body started to stiffen beneath me, and he sucked in a sharp breath. "Christ. Here we go."

He held me to him and rolled us so I was underneath him, and the sensation of him driving into me swept away any remnants of self-control in me. This wasn't the beginning of the end, I realized. He was just getting started.

A new swell of hunger for him broke over me like a wave, a cord pulling me tighter to him from deep inside. I widened my legs and drew a knee up to my chest, tilting and grinding against him, harder now, frenzied, control slipping for both of us.

He thrust into me with barely contained strength, the animal in him loosed, moans rumbling through his ribcage. His eyes, though…his eyes were tethered to me, human and bright, showing me everything, watching me see and accept and feel everything. God, how I felt everything.

He braced himself on one forearm and angled me closer, grazing my chest with his, gulping and sucking in breaths. I caught his head in my hands, centering him, clearing sweat from his forehead.

"Bella, is this good–does this feel good? Feels so fucking right to be inside you, I can't even...uhhnn."

His open mouth found mine and he crushed my lips with his, desperate and searching while he moaned in time with the rolling thrusts of his hips. His body was heavy and hot and slick between my legs. I felt my fingers dig into his back.

Everything was coming together inside of me, the weeks of wanting and days of wondering, the pressure and slickness and heat sending tremors through me. The thing that tipped the balance was the look in eyes, the naked want there, nothing hidden.

Suddenly, he moaned and pulled up to a seated position, taking me with him. "I need…."

He wrapped one arm around me and held the headboard with the other, moving more quickly now as he twisted and rocked and thrust up into me.

A river of words poured out of him. "Oh, God…you just feel so good. Fuck, I've never felt this way. I'm gonna–I can't stop it. Oh, fuck. I just want you so close. Closer…unhhh."

And then it was his voice that snapped a string in me, and the release I wanted for him. When I quivered and shook apart, he gasped and pressed his mouth to my shoulder, muffling his shout of a feral groan, the vibrations branching down through my chest and pulsing up through my pelvic bone as he came inside of me. My muscles tightened and curled around him, both of us slippery with sweat, as the waves of my orgasm washed through me, as he shuddered and whispered and stroked my skin.

As the quiet settled around us, I realized just how loudly I must have been moaning, and I felt my ears begin to burn.

"What is it?"

"I just…was I being loud?"

A soft laugh burst out of him and he clutched me to him again. "Oh, Bella."

We rocked together like that for a long moment, catching our breath. He peeled strands of my sweaty hair away from our faces, arranging it behind my ear as he kissed my flushed face. I wondered what he saw in my eyes now, if he saw the sort of delight and relief I saw in his.

Edward held me close to him as he reached to the floor for our discarded blanket, and after another moment we were lying together in a warm, drowsy embrace. His hands trailed along my skin lazily and he rested his chin on my shoulder, spooning me.

He lifted his head, smiling dizzily. "You know…I just realized this is the first time you've been naked all at once."

"You just realized?" I had to laugh, twisting to look up at him.

"I mean…I had it in my head like a collage, as if I remembered you being naked, but I was mostly seeing what I imagined." He nestled his hands in my hair, smiling.

"What you imagined?"

"So many times. So many fucking times. The way you would move. How your skin would flush." He chuckled and began kissing my face, softly kneading my skin. "I have an inadequate imagination."

I reached up to cover his mouth, laughing. "Edward. Let's not use the word inadequate in this bed."

He agreed with me wordlessly, moving to kiss my fingertips one by one.

I laughed when he whispered into my ear, "So, do you think maybe I can wear you as my costume tonight? That should go over well, don't you think?"

"Hmm, I don't know. I guess we should both put on some clothes eventually, even if it's only temporary."

He rested his forehead against mine. "I'm glad you'll be with me at this party tonight."

I nodded. We still had plenty of time before the rest of our full night. "Let's take a shower."

~.~.~.~.~.~.

When it was finally time to leave for Alice's performance, I joined Edward in the living room, fully decked out in my Halloween attire. I had to turn my head from side to side to get the full effect of his getup, because I could barely see through the oval eye-holes of my own. I was wearing fifty percent of a bear costume—the fleecy fur lower legs, mitts, and head—along with a knee-length brown cotton dress. The kit came with a bear's body, too, but I decided to go without it, figuring it would be too smelly and dank. Anyways, it was easy enough to tell what my costume was. The final touch was an empty coffee can I had tricked out to look like a honey pot.

Edward, for his part, had made an astronaut's flight suit out of white Tyvek and some sort of stiff coil that gave the material a puffy cylinder shape around his legs and arms, topped off with a silvery orb of a helmet. I could see myself reflected in the shiny metal, my oversized bear's head even further distorted.

"This is perfect. Aren't we a pair?" I giggled. He pressed a button on the front of his flight suit that emitted a static radio noise with just a hint of a human voice beneath it.

"What, you can't talk?" My voice echoed strangely inside the hollow head. It was warm in here.

He shrugged. He flipped his visor up and grinned at me. "That's the idea. We'll see how long either of us can tolerate it."

He sidled closer to me and looked me over. "This is sweet. A honey bear. What happens if I squeeze you?"

I squirmed, laughing. "I won't wear the head for Alice's show. It'll only get in the way."

"Me neither. Come on. Let's see if you and your big head will fit in my car."

~.~.~.~.~.~.

We found seats on the side of the small dance stage, settling in among costumed undergraduates and others who didn't give us a second glance. Student performances kicked off the show, including one featuring my American Civic Planning student, Ben Cheney. I raised an eyebrow when I saw him join Angela at her seat a few rows down.

When Alice took the stage, her performance was similar to what we'd seen her choreographing in the barn—only this time, a student was playing the piano and singing, and a slideshow of grainy, washed-out snapshots were projected onto a backdrop. From time to time Alice's shadow against the backdrop mimicked the posture of the people in the snapshots, or embraced them. It seemed as though she was moving through a litany of favorite memories, clutching some, letting go of others.

Edward's arm tightened around my shoulder. I could see that the pictures were mostly of Edward and Alice as children, but the images were blurred enough that strangers wouldn't have been able to tell. In the final moments of the dance, Alice stood still and expectant, watching along with the rest of us as the last frame went in and out of focus, never really resolving. When the lights came up and the audience stood to applaud, I turned to him, relieved to see more pride and exhilaration in his face than worry. He had been on his feet before anyone.

He set his helmet down on the seat. "I'll be back. I just need to go tell her it was wonderful."

I nodded and watched him go. Then I was startled by Angela on the other side of me.

"Oh! You surprised me."

"Bella, sorry." She laughed, following my gaze to see Edward disappearing into the wings. She turned back to me, her face a question mark.

"Yeah. We're kind of…seeing each other." The phrase sounded lame to me, but it also sounded vague and normal, so I went with it.

Angela seemed slightly stunned but didn't press me for details. "I just came by to give you these. I worked a few hours today and got your email, so I pulled them for you."

I looked down to see a manila envelope in her hand, my eyes widening. The reality of what I was trying to find out began to sink in. _These are real people, _I reminded myself.

"Oh, okay. Wow, that was fast. Thanks, Ang."

She said good-bye to me and suggested we catch up at the party later.

I shoved the envelope under my arm as I found Edward and walked with him out into the small parking lot, eager to stuff it into the car's glove box.

~.~.~.~.~.~.

The faculty party both was and was not what I was expecting. There was a lot of standing around and drinking, but the music was surprisingly good, and a large room had been cleared for dancing. The variety and originality of costumes impressed me, especially from adults long past the standard Halloween age. Benjamin Amun explained to me that creative types in a small town took almost any opportunity for fun and ran with it. Then he complimented my commitment to the bear costume and poured a drink into my improvised honey pot with its long drinking straw. After leaving the dance performance, I hadn't taken the bear head off all night.

Edward circulated, giving the thumbs-up to costumes he admired, posing for cheesy photo-with-an-astronaut shots, watching me from afar. From time to time he raised his glass to me, checking in. I had a pretty good idea that almost no one knew who he was, which amused me. Come to think of it, with my face obscured, they wouldn't know me either. At least I was able to talk, when Angela happened by or when strangers stopped to make observations about the scene around us.

Rose and Emmett, a zombie cheerleader and zombie linebacker, were in their own little world together the whole night. Alice and Jasper arrived late, having gone to shower and eat dinner after her show. They were adorably dressed as a stalk of celery and a radish. I congratulated her on her performance, and she seemed pleased with how it was received. Her eyes twinkled when she witnessed Edward engaged in his shenanigans across the room.

After a while, I met Edward at the catered buffet table. He piled every manner of long and narrow food item on his plate, gesturing to show how he would feed me through the small mouth-hole of my costume. I laughed.

Edward held my hand and led me to the back of the house, pausing to get the attention of a white-haired court jester along the way.

"Dean Berty?" Edward slid the visor open on his spherical silver helmet.

"Oh! Yes, Professor Cullen?"

"You've met Isabella Swan? American Studies?"

"Yes, of course. Hello, Dr. Swan."

I nodded my top-heavy, oversized head slowly in acknowledgement.

"We're together." Edward indicated our clasped hands.

Dean Berty looked down, unimpressed. "Okay."

Edward looked at me, then back to Dean Berty. "Okay then. Do we need to sign a declaration or something?"

"You're peers, and in two separate departments. It's no concern of mine." Dean Berty reached for a bottle. "Champagne?"

I nodded my head again, smiling inside my bear's head shell. Edward flipped his visor down, an astronaut once again.

As the night wore on, I grew used to being unrecognizable, and the champagne gave me a breezy feeling, but what really intoxicated me was Edward. The way he relaxed into his anonymity, engaging with people wordlessly, dancing, eventually pulling me out on the sparsely populated dance floor in the late night hours. I saw a glimpse of the ways he was changing, or returning to his former self.

While we danced, he pulled me into his arms, drawing his gloved fingers up and down my sweaty back, running them over my thighs, holding my hips to his, embracing me from behind while I waved my fleecy mitts in the air. The two of us were drunk on the night and the strangeness of the setting, amusing the deejay and a couple of dozen people with our cartoonish figures. All the while we bumped up against each other like a couple of toys with too-big heads, mumbling muffled apologies. The best we could do was awkwardly cock our heads to either side.

The deejay raised the volume on J. Dilla's _Nothing Like This_ and the chorus echoed inside my bear-head, the staccato beat shaking the old wooden floorboards splashed with beer and champagne. _There is nothing like this. I never felt quite like this. All I need in my life is. There is nothing like this._

Edward took off his helmet and set it down, whipping off his white gloves and throwing them inside it. His hair was matted with sweat, his face glistening.

"What about your oxygen supply?"

He leaned in to my ear, finding no ear hole, and finally settled on speaking into the air holes near my cheek. "You are my oxygen supply."

His hands, free from their gloves, clutched my waist while light bulbs of recognition went on in the faces around us. He was oblivious. He bent at the knees and lifted me with one strong arm, holding me flush against him so my legs dangled. I threw my arms around his neck. When he lifted my costume head off, it felt like emerging from a swampy cloud into bright sparkling fresh air, and Edward's fingers pushing my hair off of my face felt like pure cool relief. He kissed me there in the middle of the room, tasting like salty sweat and liberation, and if anybody noticed, I wasn't looking to see. All I saw was Edward.

~.~.~.~.~.~.

When I awoke hours later in Edward's bed, cool streaming moonlight washed his face in an eerie glow. He looked content in his sleep, a faint smile on his lips. I realized my yearning to be with him was stronger than ever. Now I knew the way his body could make me feel, but more than that, I was aware of the intentions he let me see and the feeling beneath his words, his gestures—they had changed me in some way. It was like we had expanded our vocabulary of ways to talk to each other, ways to connect. And now I wanted more.

I wanted him to wake up and maul me like a sex-starved animal; I wanted him to curl his body around me and for us to hibernate all winter; I wanted him shy and tentative, out on a limb with only me and some new, untested desire. I even wanted to know him irritable and hung over and headachy, if that was what was real for him when he opened his eyes.

He hadn't had much to drink the whole night, but I was already feeling the effects of too much champagne, and I knew that meant I wouldn't be back to sleep for a while. Something else was preoccupying me, rousing me from my already fitful sleep.

I moved to a kitchen stool and opened the manila envelope Angela had given to me.

These fourteen letters covered the time span when Tanya had lived in Clearwater. Many had recently been released from the three-year "cooling-off" period imposed by the library. The official rationale—and the rationale I was now using to justify even considering divulging what I was learning—was that three years of distance from an event was enough water under the bridge. So to speak. Yet…the letters were never to be made public. I knew that.

Only three of the letters could have remotely been related to Tanya and Edward's situation. I ruled two of them out based on inferences about age and timing. But the third one…a chill swept over me. I knew almost as soon as I looked at it that its author was Tanya. There was no doubt in my mind, in fact. It was improbable, a chance accident, but the telling details were there on the page.

I swallowed thickly, willing my beating heart to calm.

I pulled my laptop from my satchel and powered it up. I typed the words from Tanya's letter into the Google search bar over and over, checking and rechecking the terms she had used, considering the possibility of an error. Every search result was the same. There was no getting around what was spelled out in front of me.

As I processed what I had read, what I was seeing on my screen, I realized I had been hoping to hit a brick wall where Tanya was concerned. This was far from a brick wall; rather, it put me in a position to make a decision I wasn't comfortable making.

While I wasn't comfortable making this decision, in my heart, I had already made it. I looked back to Edward sleeping peacefully in the slanting light. He had seen me when I was at my most open—I had shown him—and he would also know when I was closing off any part of me. He wouldn't demand that I share a secret, but he would know I was keeping one.

I didn't want secrets between us. And _this_…I couldn't keep it from Edward—not when it concerned him. It wasn't for me to decide if it would help or hinder his healing process. My gut told me it would help, if only in the long run. In the meantime, well, the best I could do would be to help him understand. I felt a strange gnawing inside, and an even stranger comfort, as if I had been waiting for a test, some way to earn and deserve this affection from him. Maybe this was why the universe had sent me here to him, me with my history and my journals and my pain. Maybe this was it.

~.~.~.~.~

**AN:** Fics that I'm really loving right now: **Pressed for Time** (EPOV with a very real-seeming, human Edward and appealingly not-easily-figured-out Bella) by Twanza and Chele681, and **In the Deepest Space** by loss4words (space alien Cullens...funny, strange, lovingly rendered).


	18. Chapter 17: Knowledge

**AN: Big ups to Branching Inward's beta (happymelt) and two pre-readers (midsouthmama and faireyfan)—thanks, ladies! I don't own Twilight. **

**Playlist:**

**Is There a Ghost by Band of Horses (link on my profile).**

**~.~.~.~.~.  
**

**Chapter 17: Knowledge **

"This better not be a dream."

I had been lying awake for a while, watching a patch of light travel across the wood floors of the loft, when I heard Edward's gravelly voice and felt his hot breath on the back of my neck. He nuzzled his forehead at the nape of my neck, and I swear I felt his eyelashes tickle my skin. He tightened his arms around me and braided our legs together, then pressed himself against me all over like he was trying to permeate my cells and infuse his body straight into my muscles. Some dream.

Dream, reality—either one was a welcome break from the anxious workings of my sleep-deprived, dehydrated brain.

"I don't know, Edward." I pressed back into him, feeling him firm against my backside. "Are you naked in this dream?"

"Not yet. It just seems so real…we're in my bed, and you're there, and you're so warm…and you smell like…mmm, stale beer."

I cracked up, and his arms tightened around my stomach. So, I hadn't showered after last night's party. Neither had he.

"I'm here, Edward." I reached an arm back to feel for his neck. "And we're both awake."

His hand came up under my raised t-shirt and I held his palm against my skin, drawing it up to my breast and beyond until he was stripping the shirt off of me. Then I hooked his thumb into my underwear and guided him to drag them down, kicking with my feet to fling them away under the sheets.

"Oh, wait, I've had this dream before." I could feel his chest rumbling against my back. "I think you turn into a penguin next, right? And we have an appointment at the Turkish embassy?"

"Shut up, Cullen," I giggled. I felt him press his lips to my shoulder blade. Then he was writhing out of his own boxers. He pulled the white top sheet and blanket up over our heads so we were cocooned in our own little warm, glowing pod.

"My real live girl. In the flesh." He kneaded the soft roundness of my hip with the fingers of one hand, sliding the other between my legs. "Oh, dear God. What a way to wake up."

"You're telling me. You're not the one with a hard cock pressing against you from behind."

"You sound so sure about that." Oh, my God. I couldn't help snickering at him. He brushed his lips against my ear. "Just kidding. I can't believe you just said _cock_."

I parted my legs further, crooking my top leg over his knee. His hands kept roaming. "Yeah, I said it. But you're the one who introduced the subject."

"I guess I did, huh?" He peeked over my shoulder, watching my nipple harden between his fingers. I could feel his breath washing over me; I could taste it on my tongue.

"Since you brought it up…is it something you wanted to talk about?" I arched my low back and angled against him, biting my lip.

His hand moved back to my hip, tightening there, and I glanced down to watch the way my body yielded under the gentle pressure. The cock in question was increasingly solid and warm, pressing between my legs.

"Um, no. Not talk. Oh, Christ. Right now, Bella…my darling, cock-loving girl…I'm going to fuck you."

"Aahhh." I think I meant to say _all right_, but it didn't come out that way.

He pressed up into me, slow and insistent. Holy fuck. It was more shallow this way, both of us lying on our sides, but the angle…if I wasn't mistaken, this position was ideal for…yep. "Oh, ungh, mmmpf."

I could feel his smiling lips at my ear. "Uhh. I thought so. Let's try to make you make _that_ noise again."

He curled his body around me tighter and melded into me. He was right. This was really the only way to wake up. My skin flashed with heat and sweat. When I moaned again, slow and loud, he echoed me. "Fuck, yes. My God."

He had almost stopped moving entirely and was torturing me slowly with just the head of his cock, shaking with the effort behind his restraint. He wrapped his arms across my chest, sweaty forearms pressing my breasts, a hand on my chin turning me toward him.

"Jesus, you're just…aah." I had no idea what I meant to say. He seemed determined to slow-fuck me senseless.

"I know. Don't try to talk. Oh, God." And so I stopped trying to talk, and instead began twisting my hips, contorting to change up the angle.

"Oh, fuck, yes, whatever you need. You won't hurt me." He pressed his palm flush against my chest, over my heart.

This secret I'd been keeping for all of a few hours was lodged like a thorn in my body. Even with all the emotions swirling through me, I felt myself navigate around it. If there was ever any question about whether I would tell him, this removed all doubt. I was glad to be facing away from him right now, because I knew he'd see it in my face, and I needed this moment of flight.

And then…he bent his forehead to press against my back and started licking the sweat from my spine, one vertebrae at a time. That did it. From this slow and tightly coiled moment, my pleasure unraveled and spooled outward, ringing my nerve endings like a million tiny bells. And when he followed me with a shudder, I let myself believe I was sending it through him, too, like a sound wave custom-made for his body.

The next thing I felt was his panting breath in my ear. "Hah. I was thinking…it would be nice if you could twist your head around like that Exorcist girl so I could look into your eyes and do that." And then I was giggling again, flipping over and hitting him with a pillow. Who was this person?

He drew the blankets up over our heads again and peered at me. I liked this view. The light bounced off of his pink-peach skin and cast a glow back onto our white cocoon. I kissed the beads of sweat from his upper lip.

"So? Headache's gone, isn't it?"

"Actually, it is. How did you even know I had a headache?"

"This vein here." He stroked the pad of his thumb across my temple. "And the…teeth grinding."

I pulled a pillow over my face, but he pulled it off again.

"You, uh…you were having a dream, I think. I mean, a while ago. You talked in your sleep."

"I did? What did I say?" I could feel it now—my vein pulsing. I worried that I'd said something about the letter.

His shy smile told me I hadn't said anything to concern him. "You said my name. And then you said, 'You're not cold.' A couple of times. Just like that."

"Oh." I let him take my hand between his, warming me. "I, um…when I first saw you around campus, you know, before we even met…I thought you were this cold, icy character. I called you 'Frosty' in my head. Stuff like that."

He chuckled. "Oh, boy. I'm glad we fixed that."

"You're not cold at all."

"I can see how you got that idea, though." He cleared his throat. "I put a lot of energy into driving people away."

I found myself just staring at the two hands wrapped around mine. He had a few tiny scars on his knuckles. "Edward…there's something I need to talk to you about."

"Okay. Lay it on me." He watched my face in calm silence. When I hesitated, his own face clouded to mirror mine. He put a gentle hand on my cheek. "It's like that, huh? Serious."

I bit the inside of my cheek. He flipped our little tent of blankets open, exposing us to the bright morning light.

"Listen, let's cook…have some coffee. You can tell me after breakfast."

I met him in the kitchen after a quick rinse-off in the shower. All I had with me was the dress I had worn as my costume, so I was glad to find he had laid out a pair of sweats and a fresh t-shirt for me, even if I was swimming in them.

He pulled a face when he saw me. "Sorry. Those are my smallest pants."

I downed a tall glass of water he had set out for me, then poured myself some coffee.

"What do you think?" He leaned his head into the fridge, opened and closed white lacquer cabinets, and piled ingredients onto the counter. "Pancakes? Eggs? I've got some good oranges…"

"Do you have ginger or cloves? We can make broiled orange slices. I think I remember how to make them." These were fat, heavy oranges and I was reminded of one of the few recipes my mom used to make for me. My mouth watered.

"That cabinet behind you. And knives are here."

As I went about prepping the thick orange slices, my mind wandered easily to the other occasions I had made this breakfast with Renee. Even in Arizona, when it was never practical to turn the oven on, we made this dish a tradition on Thanksgiving and Christmas. I wondered whether Charlie remembered broiled oranges from his years with Renee long ago—if she even made them back then—and if he would want some this year. And then I found myself thinking of my mom's lean fingers testing the springy white pith of the oranges. Her hands were always a darker tan than mine. In this memory, she wasn't wearing her rings. She had lost too much weight, even in her fingers.

I wondered if Renee had ever felt the way Tanya described in her letter. The idea came upon me without warning, and I blew out a breath. No, it was ridiculous. She didn't have the temperament. Still, how would I have felt if _anyone_ I cared about had written such a letter? I paused and really looked at what I was doing. These slices were more lopsided than I liked.

I didn't realize Edward was right next to me until I felt his hand on mine, softly urging me to set down the knife. "You're making me nervous, babe. I'm rather attached to all of your fingers, you know."

I let out a sigh. My hands were sticky with orange juice, and too cold.

"Let's take a break. Come on, wash up. Let's go for a walk. Fresh air." He picked up my coffee mug. "We can bring this."

I cleaned my hands and threw on one of Edward's chunky sweaters over my t-shirt.

~.~,

The day was bright, cool, and damp. The air felt clean and soothing in my lungs. Edward pointed out the steam that rose from our coffee mugs as we walked. I looked around the field that surrounded his barn, all yellow-brown with flattened grass.

"Where are we going?"

"Just across the field here. Those are Mrs. Cope's orchards, and I think we can still find some apples that haven't been totally ravaged by raccoons."

From this perspective, halfway across the field, the barn looked almost forlorn. I figured he had focused all of his attention on the interior. "Have you ever thought of putting in a vegetable garden?"

"Nah, I just rob the neighboring fields. But if, uh…" He laughed to himself and frowned, then continued on. "I was going to say…if you wanted to, in the spring…is that weird? Too much?"

I couldn't help sneaking a look at the patch of land that bordered his packed-earth driveway. I passed my coffee mug from one hand to the other and took his hand in mine. "Not weird. I…I would like that."

We walked for a moment in silence. I had to decide exactly when would be the right time to bring his pleasant day to a screeching halt. When Edward started speaking, I was startled.

"There was this kid in Minneapolis who made these amazing paintings…encaustic with collage elements. He was sixteen, seventeen. He told me…when he had something really complicated on his mind, he would just leave language behind and 'do his pictures.' That was how he put it."

We came to a stop in the orchard. I sipped my coffee. He watched me.

"What about you—what do you do? Can you clue me in?"

"Hmm. Well, I don't 'leave language behind,' that's for sure. I write. I talk to myself. You know, in my journal, that kind of thing."

"Okay. As long as you have a way." Edward drained the last of his coffee.

Was it that simple? Looking at him standing there in a mix of sun and shade, his eyes blazing, I almost convinced myself that nothing needed to be said, not ever. I considered taking the out he was offering. I filled my lungs with air.

"Edward…have you ever had to keep a secret?"

He thought for a moment before answering. We started walking again, his boots and mine making different noises on the spongy ground. "No. Some of the Brandon-Masen Fund applications are confidential, but I don't think that counts. I've had such good luck in my life—you know I feel that way. With…one exception…nothing terrible has ever happened to me or to anyone close to me."

He reached into one of the short, spindly trees that now surrounded us and pulled out a speckled apple. I shook my head when he offered it to me.

"And what about people keeping secrets from you—that you know of?"

He used the tail of his flannel shirt to polish the apple. His eyes flitted to the sky and back down again as he considered how to answer.

"Um. There are two." He sat down to lean against the tree, pulling me down to straddle his lap. "One, you know about. Tanya, her…feelings toward me. The other…well, it has to do with Alice. She was abandoned at the fire station as a baby, and I don't think we'll ever know the reasons why. That's probably the only other real secret or mystery, as far as I know."

I laid my hands on Edward's shoulders, needlessly smoothing down his shirt collar. "If you could find out some answers now, would you?"

He tipped his head back to rest on the tree. "Depends. With Alice…well, she could very well choose differently, but I would say no. She's content, so I'm content. She knows her family loves her, and she's made peace with not knowing. It's not worth the risk of uncovering something awful. As for the other situation…"

The way he closed and opened his eyes, it was as if he was trying to blink away a heavy weight.

"You're not at peace."

"No. I'm not." He held my elbow and watched his own thumb drawing circles on my arm. "I wish I could say I was."

He sighed and raised his head to look me in the eye. "Bella. What is this about?"

"You remember that day in your kitchen when I was preoccupied with some of the Dear Government Documents letters?"

"Grilled cheese day. I remember."

"You said you would want to know the truth, no matter what. In a relationship."

He nodded and tugged at a strand of my hair, winding it around his finger. "Is this about us?"

"No. Well, indirectly. Because…it's something I know and you don't. It's none of my business, but…I know it."

"A letter from the archive?"

I nodded. "A letter. It's from her. Tanya."

We sat for a few more moments as he finished the rest of his apple. I watched so many emotions pass across his face: surprise, curiosity, faint hope. Blind panic. From time to time he looked back to my face, appraising me like a tightrope walker evaluating the net below.

He chewed his last bit of apple. "And you think it's something I would want to know? Actually, that's not what I mean. What I mean is…just…prep me. Is it really bad?"

"It's…not going to give you many answers, but I don't think it will make things worse. I, um…have it with me, back at your place." I nodded my head toward his home.

He tossed the apple core into a patch of bramble. "All right then. Let's go look."

He clenched my hand in his as we marched back to the barn, his other hand swinging at his side, holding our empty mugs. The mugs clanked together when he stopped short, pulling me close to him. I felt his chin move against the top of my head.

"Hey. I know this is weird for you. Even if I freak out a little up there…we'll be fine. You and me. You know that, right?"

I squeezed him with as much strength as I could muster.

~.~.~.~.~.

Twenty minutes later, I was facing him on the couch cross-legged and watching his face for a reaction. He set down the pages of the letter and exhaled deeply.

"Well, this is definitely her." He laughed weakly, perplexed. He gazed out into the middle distance for a moment, eyes glazed. He frowned and leaned forward, elbows on knees, pressing his eyelids with his fingers. Then he sat back and turned to look at me, rolling his head on the back of the couch.

"It's a lot to absorb."

"I know. Take your time." _Are you furious with me? Am I a jerk for dredging this up?_

He sprang to his feet and paced between the couch and the fireplace. For a moment I envisioned him snatching up the letter and throwing it into the fireplace, then flipping the starter switch dramatically. He only stared at it where he'd set it down on the coffee table. At any rate, it was a photocopy. The originals never left the library.

"I, um…a shower. I'm gonna take a shower."

"Edward–"

"I'm okay. This is…I'm okay." He nodded his head vigorously, hands on hips, convincing himself.

I watched him retreat, prepared for things to be strange for a while. Tanya was starting to feel like a person to me by now; I heard a voice in my head I called hers, and I saw her sunny face from the self-portrait at the reservoir. I could only imagine how these words affected Edward, who had known her well, dated her, cared for her. But there was no way around it; he needed to know.

I picked up the pile of papers for the hundredth time, running my fingertips over the library's date stamp of November 17, 2006. I practically had the letter memorized by now.

_Dear Government Documents, _

_You are a welcome friend to me right now. I didn't know until I moved to this town that it was possible to have a faceless, nameless friend, and I didn't know until two weeks ago how much I would welcome your listening. _

_I've spent much of my life meditating on being alone. I grew up on an island in a remote part of Alaska, a two-hour drive and one-hour ferry ride from a town big enough to have a school. My father was away most of every year on fishing expeditions, and I spent my days with the company of my mother (who was so used to isolation, she seemed to have unlearned how to socialize) and the home-schooling tutor who would visit two times per week. There were other children on the island, and we were friendly, running riot on the warmest days, spending weeks at one another's homes frequently. _

_But I was often alone, and I didn't know that my experience wasn't universal. The truth is, I loved being alone with my imagination. By the time I was a teenager, I guarded my separateness from other people, and I never lost that preference for being totally autonomous._

_Even when I went to college and lived in student housing with dozens of people, I carved out time to spend alone—hours and hours every day, sometimes. The career I've chosen allows me to be alone for long stretches of time. Relationships never took root, and I always assumed I would wind up with someone like the man my mother had chosen…someone reliably loving and reliably absent. And if it never happened, well, the only thing that ever gave me pause was the idea of dying alone. My parents are gone now. I've wondered, in rare morose moments, how I would face "the abyss" without the comfort of knowing someone on this earth would mourn me. _

_I'm not wondering anymore. I learned two weeks ago just how, and roughly when, I will die. I have months to live, at the most. What I need to know now is whether and for how long I can expect to keep this news to myself. _

_The name of the cancer I have is glioblastoma multiforme. This is a stage-IV cancer in my brain. Three doctors from three respectable medical centers have confirmed it. In general, this is a fast-growing cancer. Mine, in particular, is inoperable. It pervades the tissue of my brain like Elmer's glue in a sponge, I'm told—with the added gruesome attribute of generating its own network of blood vessels. _

_When I saw an image of it on an MRI, it called to mind nothing more than a bundle of roots waiting to branch into the earth. That much power, that much intent. Ironic. A family I'm friendly with in town (to the extent that I can call myself friendly. It's more true to say they are friendly with me—but more about that later) has a saying about the undeniable strength of love, the tendency for love to increase in strength with every new challenge and test, like a tree's roots navigating rocks and hard clay. "Giving love never depletes or diminishes love," they say. I believe that's true—for them, anyways—which is why I need to keep my struggle from them. _

_My worry isn't that I would disprove their motto somehow if I came to them for help. I worry about the opposite—that every one of them would rearrange their lives for me, would pour love into me until the day I die, bottomless pit that I am. They would witness and feel every bit of my suffering, would chauffeur me to dozens of weekly appointments and put their work on hold to do it, and then go on grieving long after I'm gone. If they were to learn about this, I could no more ask them to leave me alone than I could ask gravity to let go of the moon._

_And what I want is to be alone. This is what I now realize dying alone will mean to me: I have the luxury of breaking no one's heart, of adding nothing to the world's volume of grief. It gives me a light feeling, actually—the idea that I can disappear from this earth and leave no dark footprint behind. If I can pull it off, of course. If I don't wake up tomorrow and find needy desperation has taken over from the cushiony blanket of shock and naiveté in which I've been floating._

_I've looked into hospice care, and my insurance will cover it. Ideally, I'll be in Alaska by then, in familiar surroundings and in my familiar solitude. I imagine I'll make my final trip back there at the end of the semester. Between now and then, I'll be meeting with doctors in the city to work out a palliative treatment plan. _

_Please tell me what my medical privacy rights are, and what I need to do in order to keep this card close to my chest. Can I request a sort of public guardian who can be my advocate, for instance? Ideally, I'd prefer to continue using resources located outside of Clearwater. Thank you. _

_P.S. I know this is a strange perspective, and I fully expect it to wear off—even so, it gives me satisfaction to imagine this path for myself, even just for a while. So thank you for humoring me._

I pushed away the impulse to compare her thinking to what my mother's might have been, or even my own. The historian in me wanted to guard against muddling two issues together like that. Edward didn't need me bringing my own baggage into the situation—or so I told myself, anyways.

I took my pile of midterm papers out of my bag just to have something in front of me, but I had no real hope of paying attention to them. I found myself doodling long, curving arrows on my folder as my mind wandered.

Edward was at a low point when I met him—depriving himself of normal human relationships, reaching the limits of his self-exile. This revelation about Tanya—that she was dying and knew it—changed the narrative that had haunted him for these three years. I hoped it meant he would forgive himself in some way. I also knew that guilt was a strange crutch, hard to let go of. There was no way of knowing what new feeling might take its place.

Frankly, there was no way for me to know who he would be without this aura of anguish lingering around him. Would I feel the same about him? Would he still feel…whatever he felt about me? In my mind's eye, I saw the gregarious, outgoing person from the Halloween video, flitting from friend to friend with boundless energy and warmth but no signs of real attachment. Well, there was no turning back now.

Noises from across the loft distracted me, and I watched Edward trade a towel for navy boxer briefs and a t-shirt. He pulled on a pair of jeans and walked over to me, running a hand through his wet hair. _Gulp._

His tired, bloodshot eyes fell on Tanya's letter. But he reached out his hand to me. He pulled me to standing. "Let's eat."

He brewed more coffee while I sliced a fresh batch of orange rounds and sprinkled them with spices and sugar for broiling.

He sat on a kitchen stool and looked into the dark mirror of his coffee. When he spoke, it was as if we were resuming some conversation without ever having started one. "The strange thing is, this sounds like her. I mean it sounds like the person I thought I knew."

"Do you feel like telling me more about her? I'd like to hear."

"Well, she always had a peculiar way of seeing things. She had this lightness about her. And it's true that she was…aloof. She really did need to be alone a lot. It, uh, benefited her work tremendously—all those hours in the studio. I saw it as discipline. Love for her craft."

I slid the oranges under the broiler and came around to his side of the counter.

He threw his head back and pressed his eyes closed with his hands, sucking in a sharp breath. "Fuck, Tanya. Cancer."

I curled myself into his shoulder, averting my eyes from his face in case there were tears he didn't want me to see.

"Forget how on Earth she could have meant to go through with what she wrote…the way she died is the exact opposite of that." He gripped my shoulder awkwardly, as if he was uncertain whether to hug me tight or not. He sighed. "Would it have been so bad to just let people help her?"

I gradually wormed my way closer, tightening my arms around him. Without even looking at him, I could see him wrestling with this new onslaught of feelings—the combination of new grief for her sad situation and a fresh wave of bitterness about the choices she'd made in the end. Those old wounds were open again, just as I'd feared.

The scent of citrusy ginger and cloves filled the air, and I tore myself away from Edward to take the pan out. It didn't take long to broil an orange slice.

As I dished them out, he leaned his face close to the plate, eyes closed. "This smells good."

I sat down next to him. We ate and talked about mundane things for a while: dinner plans at Alice's, the new open mike night at Sue's café. And then he was back to Tanya, launching in midstream again.

"That tattoo of my initials." He pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes.

"It's possible she had dementia, Edward. She seems lucid in that letter, if a little unconventional, but things could have changed a lot by January."

"Yeah." He rolled his eyes. "I feel like a sick fuck, sitting here wishing she had dementia. Because it would let me off the hook?"

I knew there was nothing I could say to comfort him. Not right away. I dragged my fingernails back and forth across his back.

He sat in a daze for a moment, then picked up his phone from the countertop and made a call. While he waited for the voicemail beep, his mouth shaped the word _shrink_. "Carmen, this is Edward Cullen. I was wondering if you could fit me in this week. I can do mornings if that's easier. Thanks."

He snapped the phone shut and pulled me closer. He was taking this in stride. "I don't want to ask Carlisle about the dementia thing. Not right away."

"Okay." I could see him contemplating how or when to tell his family about this new revelation.

He stood and began piling our dishes into the sink. "Let's think about it later."

We talked about a few more things as the day unfolded. He talked about feeling comforted to know she had understood his family so well, even if she shut them out. We discussed the stories he'd heard of her being drunk in the afternoon, and whether that could have been her neurological decline. I told him about some people I'd known on the hospital ward in Phoenix and the tricks they had for hiding their symptoms from selected people—and the exhaustion that kept them from hiding everything from everyone. We listened to some records and looked up movie schedules online. We napped together on the big white bed, coiled together like drowsy cats.

As we got ready to go to Alice's, I noticed a billow of black smoke coming from the direction of campus, and Edward explained that it was the Halloween bonfire getting started.

For the next few days, he vacillated between life as usual and periods of intense reflection. On Monday, we visited the charred remnants of the still-smoking bonfire. He told me about the photographs Tanya had taken of the event the year she was on campus, how she curated the shots so the only fire you saw was what was reflected in people's eyes, the warm glow it cast on their skin. On Tuesday and Wednesday, he was clingy—pulling me into the shower with him, waking me up in the night to make me come with his mouth, absently gripping my leg as I drove us home from campus.

Late one night, Edward brought up the dementia again, and I offered to call Jacob to get answers. He was in his third year of medical school and had done a rotation in neurology.

Jacob confirmed that things like judgment and impulse control could be affected. "Either the tumor or palliative radiation treatment—maybe both—could have caused her to lose memory, judgment, yes. Bella, I'm sorry about your friend."

"It's…not…thank you."

I repeated the information to Edward, and he gestured to me for the phone. I told Jake I was handing him off.

"Dr. Black?...oh, okay, Jacob…yes, I appreciate that…thank you. Is memory loss always a part of it?" Edward paced in a tight circle, one hand pressing the phone to his ear, the other resting at the back of his neck. "Listen, what can you tell me about stereotactic radiosurgery? Is there a chance that, here in Ohio, she didn't…oh. Cleveland Clinic…yeah. I see…no, I just saw something on the internet."

Edward finished the call and gave me a grim smile.

"There are more conventional ways of getting to know each other's exes."

That surprised me. "I never told you I dated him."

He put his hand on my lower back and pressed his lips to the top of my head. "You didn't need to tell me."

"It was never serious."

"I know." He squeezed my shoulder. "It's just something in your voice when you talk to him. It's your 'arm's length' voice."

I frowned. I knew what he meant, sort of.

He explained what he was asking Jake about, pulling up a website for the Cleveland Clinic Gamma Knife program on my laptop. "I thought that maybe she just didn't have access to state-of-the-art treatments here in Ohio, but…I forgot the Cleveland Clinic has everything. She may have even had this procedure, for all I know."

It suddenly struck me as unbelievably sad, his need to pursue these _if only_ lines of thinking. How many thoughts like this had been going through his mind, unspoken? I fell asleep that night with Edward draped over me like a blanket, as if even in his sleep he couldn't help but shelter anyone near him.

On Thursday night, I read and graded papers on his couch while he worked in his shop on the lower level. An early snowstorm was predicted, and he wanted to finish some projects and weatherproof the stairwell. The muffled sound of power tools reached me through the floorboards, and I smiled to remember him working with his hand-made frames at the honey farm. I wondered about the conversation we'd had on Sunday…his question about my method for sorting out tough problems. He seemed to like a hands-on approach. And I'd been telling the truth about my journals. A bunch of them were stashed in my desk at home, and another stack was stored in my office. I'd never really thought about how often I referred back to them.

I heard a light tapping noise coming from below, then Edward's voice. "Bell? Will you come down here a minute? Pound twice if you hear me." I pounded.

~.~.~.~.~.~.

The work room was impeccably organized and smelled of freshly cut wood. About half of the room was devoted to metal storage shelves with all sorts of clearly labeled bins. The rest of the wide-open space was uncluttered, furnished with heavy-duty woodworking equipment like large saws, an air compressor, and a power awl. Edward was covered in wood shavings. His safety goggles were pushed up onto the top of his head, and some sawdust clung to his sweaty skin.

"I was never sure what to do with this." He beckoned me toward a stack of frames resting on a crate. In front, its protective paper wrapping falling away, was a large, framed black and white photograph taken in Esme and Carlisle's living room.

He sat down in an old rolling chair and I sat on his lap. In the photograph, Carlisle looked to be reading something aloud from the paper while Esme, on the couch, wound yarn from a skein into a tight ball. Edward, sitting next to her, held the loose skein of yarn in his hands, assisting Esme to keep it from tangling. His head was cocked like he was listening to Carlisle read. And finally, Alice was stretched out on the floor, smiling with her eyes closed, a set of large headphones on her ears. No, not finally—there was another figure in the scene. A person moving past in the background, barely a blur preserved on film. Tanya. Centered in the shot was the oak tree quilt, hanging on the living room wall behind the couch.

"She took this to give as a Christmas gift to my parents. It was before our big fight about her art show application." He pointed out a mess of Tupperware containers on the counter—Thanksgiving leftovers. "We stayed up late watching a Hitchcock marathon after this. Esme, too. All of us."

"I saw the contact sheet from this day, and there were options where we were all in focus." He rested his chin on my shoulder. "I thought this was a misfire, honestly. Like she was running to move stray clutter out of the shot and got caught. But…this is a self-portrait."

"She wanted you to remember her like this." In their lives, but transient, unobtrusive.

"My…gut tells me she wasn't herself at the end, B." He hunched his shoulders forward around me and released a single broken sob, then inhaled sharply, collecting himself. I folded my arms on top of his around my waist.

He whispered into my shoulder. "She was a good person. And I want to remember her as a good person. I don't want to feel this anger anymore, babe."

I gripped his arms tighter. I knew there were things he wouldn't be able to understand—the tattoo, the demented gift of nudes, her desperate last-ditch ploy to ensure he witnessed her pain in the end. But he had a lifeline to cling to now—something that would bring him to the surface, to a sort of imperfect peace.

The idea of Edward healed and content spooked the needy part of me that wanted to hold on to him forever, but it thrilled the other part of me that wanted to see him free and full of joy. I loosened my grip and turned in the chair to face him. I needed to see if he was pensive or melancholy looking at the photograph, but he wasn't looking at it at all. He was as exposed as I had ever seen him, and he was looking straight at me.

His face flushed pink as he choked out words. "Tell me what I'm supposed to feel."

I framed his face with my hands, brushing sawdust away from his eyes. I forced down the lump in my throat. "She made a mistake, sweetie."

His eyelids drifted closed, and I kissed them. "She was distraught. And sick. And she didn't mean it."

He opened his mouth against my face and found my lips, blindly. I felt more than heard his words. "Tell me again."

"She didn't mean it." I was crying now. He tasted my tears, never opening his eyes. I pushed my hands through his hair, hearing the plastic safety goggles drop to the floor with a clatter. "She didn't mean it. Let it go a little bit. There's nothing in you to deserve that."

His arms around me were a vice, his head on my chest a heavy treasure. And I knew then that whatever else he needed, I would spend my life trying to give it to him. For however long he needed it, I would try. I bent my head to rest on his. Outside, the wind howled. The winter I'd been waiting for was almost here.

~.~.~.~.~.


	19. Chapter 18: The Darkness and the Light

**AN: **The awesome, happy, snow-melting** happymelt** is the beta for this story, and **faireyfan** and **midsouthmama** are very generous with their time and comma advice as pre-readers! And: Branching Inward was recently discussed/reviewed by **byhelenahandbasket** and **Kassiah** on **The Fictionators** and even got a mention on the **Perv Pack Smut Shack** **Lemon Report** a couple of weeks ago, which is insanely fun and awesome (thanks!). Greetings to those of you who found this story that way (or any other way, really!).

**Playlist: **Last Breath After Coma by Explosions in the Sky (link on my profile if you're interested)

~.~.~.~.

**Chapter 18: The Darkness and the Light **

Births and deaths. Marriages and divorces…and almost-divorces, and should-have-been marriages. First loves, heartbreaks, long-lived contentment, and unexpected changes late in the game. It was all spelled out for me as plain as day in Emily's Clearwater Circle quilt collection. What I didn't understand was: _why_? What compelled people to encode the details of their lives into a visible, permanent record this way?

Emily sat across from me in a booth at her aunt's cafe and tried to explain it to me. She began by dishing dirt on her own flesh and blood.

"Well, take Sue as an example." She nodded in Sue's direction, and Sue acknowledged her with a wink. "She was quite the wild child back in her youth. She was like a proto-hippie, a few years ahead of the pack. She lived on a bus for a few years, chasing different bands around the country. And she always said when she settled down with Harry, she wanted him to know exactly who she was, where she'd been, what she envisioned for their future."

I remembered Sue's quilt vividly. It was a crazy patchwork of prints and colors, all in the same cotton poplin fabric, converging into a central bright white star, leading into a second crazy patchwork of varied textures and fabrics, all in the same royal purple color. "She was ready for a change when she met him."

Emily nodded. "She was ready to commit but not to give up her love for adventure. They had a wild life together. But the quilt marks a turning point. I guess that's the purpose the quilts serve, more than anything—they give us ways of creating chapters in our lives, organizing our experiences in an intentional way. This way, we can manage some of the chaos that life hands to us."

The bell above the café door clanged, announcing Edward's arrival. I watched over Emily's shoulder as he strode toward me, and I caught her smirking out of the corner of my eye. "As life sometimes does, whether we're ready or not."

He walked like a tired man, but his eyes were bright. I pulled my attention back to Emily. "What? I'm sorry, you were in the middle of saying something."

She laughed. "Never mind, Bella. You're so far gone, I can't possibly hold you accountable."

I shook my head in confusion as she gathered her things and moved to offer Edward her seat.

"Hey, hang on, Em. Stay where you are." He scooted in beside me and draped an arm around my shoulder, kissing my temple as he spoke to Emily. "Did you eat?"

Emily relaxed into her seat again but held onto her pile of documents. "I've been stealing Bella's fries. But Sam has chili waiting at home."

"Cornbread, too?"

"You bet." She smiled at both of us. "You should join us next week."

Edward made a pretense of hemming and hawing in response. That was a yes. He sent his greetings along to Sam, and then helped himself to fries from my plate.

As I said goodbye to Emily, my cell phone chirped at me. Edward watched me glance at it and delete the message. This one was from Phil. That made three this week, plus four from Charlie.

Just when I thought Edward's attention was back on painting ketchup circles with my fries, he turned to me with his eyebrows raised. "Anything important? Do you need a minute?"

I shook my head. He opened his mouth as if to say something, only to close it again. He fed me a fry. "Okay, then."

It wasn't so much that I was choosing to keep my issues from him, but it was so easy to let myself be distracted by anything and everything else whenever he was around. I watched him approach Sue at the counter to say hello. He visited for a moment before placing his order, and she appeared to scold him about the bags under his eyes.

Edward's days—and sometimes nights—in the studio were simultaneously energizing him and wearing him out. He'd had a rush of new ideas and was struggling to execute them, on top of meeting with his therapist twice a week and spending most of his spare time with me. The last thing I wanted to do was dump my own stress on him.

Edward sat down, across from me now, and followed my gaze to the year-at-a-glance calendar posted on the wall above the booth. He looked back and forth between his coffee cup and the calendar.

"Listen…I know the last thing you want is a lecture from me. But that calendar is going to keep moving forward. Babe?"

He reached across the table and rested his hand on mine. His palm was warm from cradling the coffee mug. He leaned forward, bringing his face closer to mine, speaking softly.

"This…this anniversary is going to come, no matter how much you don't want it to. Don't you think…don't you think you should have some sort of plan? Will you let me help you?"

"She never liked the idea of a 'death day' commemoration. She always said it was morbid."

"Look at me, Bella. It doesn't have to be anything like that. Will you let me help you?"

I looked at him, finally. I knew what he was asking me. All he wanted was for me to acknowledge it and to stop hiding my struggle from him.

"November 20th. My mom…died on November 20th." I had ten days until then.

He turned my hand over on the table and wrapped his fingers around my wrist. It was a grip you would use to keep someone from drowning. I closed my own around his.

~.~.~.~.

The next day I was comparing to-do lists and notes with Angela when Edward appeared in my office doorway. He gave her a shy, quizzical look. He knew I'd planned to talk to her about Tanya's letter, and he was uncertain how she would react, given the supposedly confidential nature of the DGD archive.

"Should I come back later?" He pushed his hands into his pockets.

"No, we're finished." Angela stood to go. Edward helped her on with her coat, and she gave his arm a squeeze before turning to leave.

"Edward…I'm sorry we couldn't have connected this for you sooner."

He frowned slightly, shaking his head. "Angela, don't be, of course not."

He watched her walk away and came inside, closing the door behind him. "What did she have to say?"

"Well, she reminded me about the compassionate disclosure guidelines. It's a caveat that allows you to weigh the consequences of disclosing certain types of information in special situations."

"So…exactly what you did, in other words." He settled into my guest chair.

"Right." I hadn't known it was allowable when I did it, though. That still bothered me. I scowled at myself.

"Stop it. You're too hard on yourself." He pulled my feet up into his lap and wrapped his fingers around my ankles. He started sliding one hand up the leg of my corduroys, tossing a glance at the closed door. "Hey, does that lock?"

I pulled my feet away and stood up, giggling. "Yes, and you know it, but I have a class in fifteen minutes, and you know that, too."

"I'll be fast. I'll be so fast." He wrapped his long arms around my waist and pulled me to stand between his legs, pressing his face to my stomach as if he were serious. But even he was laughing at the idea.

I twisted and bent over to open a file cabinet drawer, and Edward made exaggerated humming noises from behind me.

"Cullen, save it. Turn it down a notch for a minute." I sat on his lap. "Listen…."

He looked down at the pile of soft-bound notebooks in my hands.

"These are, um, my journals from…last fall."

He looked up to my face, his expression totally changed from a moment earlier. His hands, too, changed their tone as he strengthened his hold on my hips.

"I was thinking…well, you've seen by now I don't feel ready to talk about my mom directly, and I think you don't know a way to talk about things _except_ to do it directly…so…I thought I could give you these."

I flipped one of them open and shut it just as quickly. Something about _a huge hole in my chest_. I felt a phantom fluttering—a reminder of what was now only barely patched up after all this time.

"This might also help you understand about Tanya, in a way. Fighting a terminal illness is…not like anything else."

"Okay." His voice was so soft.

For the next few moments, I resisted the urge to reach over and lock the door after all, even though all I was doing was letting him hold me to his warm, hammering chest.

~.~.~.~.

I saw Emily again later in the week when Edward and I drove out to the farm for that promised homemade chili and cornbread lunch. We'd planned to make a long afternoon of it, because Sam wanted Edward's help wrapping the beehives in tarpaper in anticipation of winter. Emily showed me some quilt construction basics as we watched Sam and Edward in their head-to-toe bee-proof outfits. I laughed under my breath at Edward's stiff posture. He was definitely not at ease. A third, much smaller person in his own too-large suit observed, hanging back.

"That's my cousin Seth. Leah's brother. He's doing a science fair project on bees."

"Oh, yeah? That's a nice coincidence."

She winced, smiling wryly. "He picked it because it's easy—because he knew he'd have help. He's struggled in school ever since losing his dad two years ago."

"That's a hard age to lose a parent. I mean…it's hard at any age. But that must be really tough. What is he, fifteen?"

Emily looked at the quilt square I was stitching together and corrected my seam alignment. "Fourteen. Yeah. He's got good people who are there for him, but he still feels a lot of pain."

I watched Edward turning back and forth between Seth and the hives, gesturing. He was so good with people. He knew when to push and when to hold back. Seth was leaning forward now, inching closer to the hives. Edward's body language was an exaggeration of calm now—for Seth's benefit, I was sure.

"Emily, has Edward mentioned the arts program he's starting up with Esme in the Spring? It's for high-school aged kids."

"You think Seth would be a candidate?"

"If he's interested—I know they have room. I imagine Edward has already mentioned it to Sue."

"Well, I'll follow up. Thanks. Sometimes Sue thinks he does too much for her, and she gets it into her head to turn down good offers, you know?"

I did know. And it wasn't just Sue who could be foolish about a good thing right in front of her. I'd been so resistant to Edward's attempts to help, and why? What was I so afraid of? My cheeks flushed pink, and I bent to finish up my quilt square.

That evening, driving home, the conversation was fresh on my mind when Edward brought up his idea for spending the 20th at Emmett's field research station. And that was how I came to agree to honor my mother by doing volunteer work at a sanctuary for flightless and injured birds.

~.~.~.~.~.

When the day came, I called Charlie while Edward packed sandwiches and snacks into a bag. Then I called Phil. I even called Jacob. In every case, it wasn't much of a conversation on either end—just hey, I'm thinking of you, thanks for thinking of me, et cetera. I felt a twinge of guilt to hear the sheer relief in my dad's voice just to hear me acknowledge the day.

Charlie tacked on his usual spiel at the end. "Bells, I'll never stop saying this—she loved you so much, and she was so proud of you, and I love you and am proud of you. Every day."

"I know, Dad."

It felt like progress just to let Edward hear me make the calls. I had to get used to letting him see my troubles. I knew he'd been reading my journals all week, even though he steered clear of mentioning them directly. He did little things—changed the radio station in the car when certain songs came on, helped me stick to my daily running routine. I had a pretty good idea about which entries he'd been reading on Wednesday, when he had walked into my kitchen to find me doing dishes and just held me tight for ten long minutes, not saying a word.

After I finished my calls, it was time to drive over to the sanctuary, where we'd be spending the day winterizing the habitat and cleaning equipment. I'd told Edward it was okay with me if he invited everyone, and I was unexpectedly touched to see them all show up—Carlisle and Esme, too. They avoided anything that sounded like a ceremony and didn't pressure me to talk about Renee. It was all I could manage just to spend the day silently thinking about her, or even working with her in my heart, without thinking of anything in particular. Edward was onto a good thing with this business about working with your hands—it was restorative, getting out of my head for a while.

The bird sanctuary was located on the grounds of a state nature preserve. Emmett took time to explain about why some of the birds were there, which ones would make a full recovery, and what would happen to them. Some were the victims of animal attacks, and others had been hit by cars. Some were orphans that had been found in abandoned nests.

At the end of the day, Emmett gathered us together with the staff vet and a few students to observe the release of a great horned owl that had completed its rehabilitation. The bird was inside a portable cage that looked like a large cat carrier. The group of us trooped to the edge of the forest, where the bird would be set free. The celebratory atmosphere was contagious, and I could feel Edward's eyes on me as I smiled.

"We just need to outfit her with a fresh serial number tag, and she's good to go." Emmett leaned over my shoulder, and I felt a sharpie and something that looked like a super strong zip-tie being pushed into my hand. "You can write something on here, if you like. A name, or anything you want. No one will see it."

So I did. I watched Emmett reach into the cage to attach the tag to the bird's trembling, spindly leg, his big hands in heavy gloves somehow managing the tiny, delicate tools. I pulled Edward toward me. And then the cage door was open, and the owl came tottering out.

"That's it?"

"That's it. There she goes." I watched the bird hop twice, then lift off, flapping her wings awkwardly at first. She began to soar, gaining confidence and a sense of direction. Soon she was just a dot in the distance, then nothing at all.

I asked Edward to walk with me to the ridge that night, the place where we had seen the sun go down on our first date. It was cold, and we hadn't brought an extra blanket in the car with us, so we didn't stay long. Thanking him for the day felt weirdly difficult, harder than I had any rational explanation for, but I managed to do it. Walking back to the car, the way he sheltered me from the whipping wind, he seemed even a little bit taller than usual.

~.~.~.~.~.

After that whirlwind of a week, I was content to nest at home and take care of chores on Saturday night, with a plan to meet up with Edward later. I was in the middle of putting away laundry—including all of my thermals and thick socks in preparation for the coming cold snap—when the power went out. In fact, it went so completely and spectacularly out that, for a moment, I wondered whether I was hallucinating.

It wasn't just my electricity that was out, but the whole neighborhood's; there was nothing but total darkness for as far as the eye could see. No streetlights, no glow from neighboring homes, no ambient light reflecting up into the cloud cover. In the absence of the white-noise hum of appliances, the sound of my own breathing startled me. I tried and failed to see the hand in front of my face, which was amusing at first—then frightening.

I sat on my bed for a few moments, trying to recall if I had any candles or matches in the house. Then my cell phone lit up, a blue beacon in the dark.

"Are you at home?" Edward's voice had enough merriment in it to calm me.

"Yeah. What's happening? How can it be so dark?" My voice came out in a bit of a high-pitched squeal. I cleared my throat, trying to cover.

He chuckled. "Welcome to a rural blackout, doll. The whole grid is out. Do you want company?"

"Can you? I mean, yes, of course, are you kidding? Where are you?"

"I was just at Muddywater's. Sue sent me with about ten pounds of perishables from her fridge. Don't worry, my superpower is finding my way in the dark."

"Oh, is it, now?"

"Maybe not my only one." I could practically see him winking at me, the way he was laying it on thick. It was working—I was calming down.

"No doubt. I'd put money on it." I laughed, my heart fluttering.

"Well, my cell phone has enough juice to light my way for a few blocks, I think. If it runs out…I can always crawl along the curb or something."

"Well, whatever works, I guess." I was giggling by now, which was better than hyperventilating. I figured I should let him go and spare his cell battery. I sighed. "See you soon. How am I so lucky?"

"Lucky? You're not lucky. Unless you think you're lucky I love you."

"I…"

It was as if all of the air had been sucked out of the room. My mouth dropped open. I had words poised on the tip of my tongue, but I couldn't manage to articulate a thing.

Silence. Just the echo of his words, tinny through the cell phone speaker, weirdly loud in the darkness. I put out a hand to steady myself.

"Um…"

Silence from him, too. Wait, that sounded like wheezing.

"Fuuuuck. Bella, I am an idiot." I could hear his breathing quicken, like he was walking faster. "Stay right there. Don't move. I'll be there in ten minutes. Five minutes. Shiii–" He cut himself off mid-groan.

I stared into the pitch blackness, in the general direction of my now-darkened phone. This was all very unorthodox.

I realized I was shuffling toward the stairway, feeling for the wooden ridges of each step with my toes, unsure why I was risking the blind obstacle course but feeling drawn toward the front door like I was caught in the pull of a tractor beam.

It took me an eternity, but I made it down. I wiped my clammy hands on my jeans as I inched my way off of the last stair. I could hear my own shallow breathing. And my heart—my heart…

His footsteps on my front stairs ricocheted in the air, making my pulse pound in my ears.

I heard the creak of the door swinging and felt a moment's surprise, marveling that it was as dark with the door open as it was with it closed. _Of course it was_. This darkness was thick and complete, sparing no one and nothing.

Then I felt Edward run smack into me with an "Oof." His grocery bag tumbled to the floor softly, and the heavy door fell closed on it, shutting it out on the porch. He fumbled to find my face with both hands. He backed me up to the wall, breathing out a deep sigh. He smelled like wool and skin and tea.

"Bella—just listen to me. You don't have to say anything." He was out of breath. He pressed his cold nose to my cheek and found my lips with his. His hair, wet with rain, flopped onto my face. Just as I began to dissolve into him, he broke away with a gasp and kept talking, his mouth moving against my mouth.

"I don't mean to freak you out. I never meant to blurt it out over the phone, it's just always in my head and I've been thinking it for a while now. Don't say anything; this isn't pressure, okay?" He held my head in his hands, his fingers nestled deep in my hair. "I love you. I love you. Christ, I love you. Oh, God. It feels so good to say it. I just…love you."

I didn't expect those words to buckle my knees and make my body light up like I'd been plugged into a socket. He was right—this felt different in person. I pulled him to me, my head spinning, not knowing what to think, not thinking anything.

He had never kissed me so fiercely before. Never so insistently, so confidently. His lips were my anchor in this sea of pitch blackness. And I liked it. I liked that there was nothing playful or teasing about this kiss. I wanted to believe him, and I did believe him.

My sense of direction was worthless at this point, but I was sure that I was sliding down the wall, sinking to the floor. He sank right along with me, easing us down onto the wooden stairs, bending his knee between mine. I heard myself saying his name, saying _yes_.

Edward's softness, the warm pliable surface of his skin and the heat on his breath melted me into the floorboards. I leaned back against something—the stairs, I guess—and pulled him against me, seeking the hottest places I could find with my hands, shoving aside fabric and metal buttons.

It was a moment before he grasped my hands, groaning. "Uh, hold on. I'm not about to bang you on this wooden staircase. I mean—oh, fuck, let's do that sometime—but not tonight. We need the bed."

I smiled under his lips, my heart beating faster, and he brought his arm up under my back, protecting me from the edge of the stair. With my head cradled in his hand, he seemed to forget himself again, and I was lost in a long, slow kiss, feeling nothing but the pressure and slide of his lips in the dark. This wooden stair was becoming quite comfortable. Until it wasn't. I shifted, afraid I was pinning his arm underneath me.

"Up. Come on, carefully. To the bed." He hovered over me, framing my body with his limbs as I crawled backward up the stairs like a crab, feeling my way. He smelled like coffee and tea and flour now, the undertones of wool fading back.

I kept moving up, groping behind me for the next stair, and the next, and the next. I made a mental note to sweep these dusty stairs. Edward followed, mere centimeters of space between us. It felt safer to keep my center of gravity low, anyhow. He cracked up and bent his face to stifle his laughter in my shoulder.

"What's funny?"

"Just what an idiot I am. My timing. It's driving me crazy that I can't see your face. And…I should be doing something more decisive in this moment. Sweep you into my arms and stride across the threshold or something, you know?"

"Huh, okay, Fabio. Trust me, this is perfect."

"Mmm. Did I mention I love you? Oh, God, it's so easy. I can just say it all the time now." He was laughing again, and it made me smile to feel the tension leaving his body even as we navigated the staircase in the dark.

"Baby, watch your head on the railing." We were near the top of the stairs, where the railing curved out. I put a hand to the crown of his head, guiding him. Just a narrow hallway next, and we were in my bedroom.

I scrambled awkwardly to my knees, then to my feet, mentally reviewing the various soft and hard objects that would be littering my floor. "Careful. There are…piles."

"What happened in here? Tornado?" Edward tripped and stumbled, finally lifting me and lurching the last few steps to the bed, steamrolling over any clutter on the floor.

"This is nothing, believe me. It gets a whole lot messier."

"I can't wait. Here, let me help." He pulled his sweater over his head and tossed it away. I heard his boots drop to the floor, one by one, then the distinct sound of a belt buckle unbuckling.

I reached for him and found he'd made quick work of his clothes. He was naked from the waist down. The mental image made me giggle. I pulled his layers of shirts off all at once, finishing the job. He leaned his torso over me, making sure we were centered in the bed. I groped for his face with a flat palm, hoping not to poke his eye.

"Keep your face close. If I can at least hear you…maybe I won't head-butt you."

He made a noise that sounded like smiling—a puffing exhale I'd heard a thousand times before and knew by heart. He brought his lips to my neck, to the underside of my jaw.

"Good plan. Please don't head-butt me. Unless I make you lose control completely, in which case…that's a goose-egg I'll wear with pride." He stopped for a moment to suck gently at my earlobe, flicking it with his tongue, which made me squirm.

"Oh, uhnn. It's only a matter of time, I think. Losing it already."

"I think…this is good. This is actually good." He straddled me, rising up on his knees and bending to touch his forehead to mine. He held my wrists and spread my arms out wide against the bed, orienting me to how much space was around me. "I'm starting to see how this will go, and I think you'll like it."

He let go of one of my wrists and moved his hand to my stomach, finding the one narrow strip of exposed skin between my shirt and my jeans. It shifted the energy in the air, clearing away my giddiness and giving focus to the underlying intensity.

He whispered into my ear. "Let me run this show. Do you trust me?"

I nodded. I knew he could feel it.

"Say it."

"I trust you."

He groaned against my ear, then moved his mouth to find mine. His fingers slid under the hem of my t-shirt, just skimming my ribcage. "Kiss me."

His hands stopped moving altogether when my mouth opened on his, as if he needed all of his attention to feel my tongue snaking out against his lips. In the darkness, I was aware of every stray, spiky hair of stubble, the parched surface of his wind-chapped lower lip, the easy wafting of his breath across my face.

His lips travelled lazily down my neck to my collarbone. He pulled my t-shirt up halfway and stopped again, distracted by my midriff. He used his tongue to draw wet lines along the grooves of my lower ribs, his chest rumbling when I gasped.

"Fuck, Edward." Every nerve in my body was following the progress of his mouth across my skin.

"I know. Help me. Take this off." He meant my bra. I sat up slightly to pull off my shirt first, then the bra, listening to the fabric rustling. Edward took the clothes from me and tossed them away.

He circled my wrists with his fingers and pulled my arms out flat again, pressing the backs of my hands into the mattress. He moved to lay a kiss on each of my palms—two tender stigmata. "Keep them here. Try."

When his mouth came down on my ribcage again, I could feel just how blind he was, how purposeful his slow exploration. I groaned, feeling the vibration of the sound in the air around us.

"Yes. I knew you would like this."

He spent a moment nosing the sensitive area below my sternum, where my scar took a turn toward an L shape. He located the lower swell of my breast and pressed it with his lips, softly biting, torturing me. He rolled his stubbly face up my breast, grazing my nipple.

"Your body is a treasure map, I think. So much to discover. So full of little places."

My own breathing was so shallow, noiseless. I wanted so badly to wrap myself around him, to bury my twitching hands in his hair, but I made myself wait. He traced a dotted line all around the border of my nipple before infiltrating it with a slow, hard stroke of his wet tongue. Jesus Christ. I clenched my teeth.

"This little place. It's like satin and pebbles and something…soft. Do you know how many times a day I think about this…soft…homeland here?"

That was designed to get a whimper out of me, and it worked. His tongue alone would have worked. He made his way across to my other breast, repeating the whole process again, his hot breath increasingly ragged and clipped.

"How long…what are you…" I was feeling incoherent.

"Shh. Don't even start. I'm gonna make you feel good. That's all you need to know."

I had a feeling he was right, and that drove me even more insane. I could feel my pulse between my legs, my clit tingling and throbbing, miles away from where he was touching me. I pinched my thighs together, squirming.

"So eager." He put a hand on my leg, stilling me. "Just a minute now. We're getting there…eventually."

He trailed the backs of his hands up the sides of my ribcage, making me shiver. He bent his mouth to my breast again, moving from one to the other, lingering, luxuriating. "See, it's like a vacation from always looking. Do you know how much I love to look at you? It takes a blackout for me to just feel you without looking. And you feel…so...good."

Christ. Thank God for the darkness. I arched my back, pressing up into his mouth. My whole body was shaking.

"I can tell you're blushing, you know, even if I can't see it. Your skin is hot."

I heard myself making incoherent noises.

"I'm sorry; are you overheating? Maybe…less clothes." His hands move to the zipper of my jeans, loosening them, stripping them from me. His mouth never left my breasts. He pushed my pants and underwear off, using his feet to help me kick them away. He came back to hover between my legs, holding himself just out of reach.

He pulled his face up to mine, bending to my ear with a stage whisper.

"Baby, I've been hard as a rock for about fifteen minutes. I meant to draw this out longer, but–"

That broke the spell. My hands flew from the mattress to grasp his head, his shoulder, the back of his neck. I wrapped my legs around him, digging my heels into his hamstrings. "Oh God, fuck me. I'm going out of my mind, here."

I shifted my hips until I felt him pressing and sliding against me. With a shudder, he lifted up and entered me with one smooth thrust. I lived for the noise he made every time he entered me, a helpless, shameless groan.

"You made me wait so long for that." I dug the pads of my fingers into his muscled shoulders, greedy for his sweat and skin and strength. "Feels so good. So good. I love feeling how much you want me."

He panted wordlessly, his head bobbing against mine. I pulled my knees up higher, feeling him sink deeper, hearing him groan louder. I rocked with him, arching and curling my back under him. Sweat was pooling between my breasts—his sweat, my sweat.

"Can you go harder?" With a guttural whimper, he started driving into me faster, rising up and sinking down with his whole length, moving my whole body with every thrust.

"Oop, headboard." I was hitting it with my head.

"Turn this way. Fuck, Bella. Oh, my God." We shifted over, diagonal on the bed, away from the headboard. I stretched my legs out long for a moment, getting the blood flowing again, then bent my knees higher. The movement made him falter and collapse into me, clamping his noisy mouth down on my neck.

"You like that?"

I tried it again, raising and lowering my knees, then again and again, flushing to feel and hear his stifled groans through my flesh and bones. I was so close to bursting with feeling, and I could feel how close he was, too.

"Say it again, Edward."

"Okay. Uhhhnn—what? Say what?"

"What you said before. Downstairs. Say it again."

He gasped, the shock of realization rippling through his body. "Oh, God, Bella. I love you. I love you. Jesus, fuck. I love you."

He jerked and thrust into me wildly, burying himself in me over and over, deeper and deeper, flailing his head and pressing his face back into the soft skin of my neck. "Oh, shit. I'm—oh. Christ."

I tightened my arms around him, both of us surprised by how fast and hard he was coming inside me, by the volume and force of his noisy growl. His whole body tensed for a long, shuddering pulse and then he crumpled, spent and gasping for air.

When his breathing calmed a bit he rolled to the side, pressing two fingers to my clit as he pulled out of me, circling and sliding, echoing the pressure I had just been feeling. He found my face in the dark and whispered onto my skin. "I didn't hurt you, did I? That was…intense."

"Uh-uh. It felt good. This feels good." I fumbled for his hair and pulled him to kiss me. It was nice, kissing him when he was as relaxed as this. He hooked two fingers inside me, curling them upward. His thumb took over circling my clit, his tongue in my mouth mimicking the strong, slow strokes.

He caught my lower lip between his teeth, tugging it gently as my breathing quickened, and he tangled his free hand in my hair and twisted it as soon as I started shuddering with my orgasm, holding on until I was bucking and convulsing against his hand, gulping for air and crushing my eyes closed.

He cradled my head and breathed a deep sigh against my skin. "I miss your face. I really like seeing your face when you come."

I nodded, surprised to feel a swell of emotions washing over me. I groped for the covers and pulled them up over us, settling into the crook of his arm for the night.

~.~.~.~.~.

Hours later, I peeled my eyes open to find the room scattered with just enough pre-dawn light to see. Finally. My room was littered with books and shoes, clean and dirty laundry strewn here and there. Everything looked soft and pinkish-grey in this light. Semicircles of frost decorated each of the window panes and big flakes of snow floated past outside. Edward, beside me, was peaceful and warm, his chest rising and falling. I spent some time drinking him in with my eyes, matching his physical features to different memories from the night. I shook Edward's shoulder, calling his name to wake him up.

"Hmmm? What time is it? You okay?"

"Edward. Edward, look at me."

He turned to look at me, blinking his heavy lids. His face brightened as he registered his surroundings, seeing me. This was what I'd been waiting for.

"Edward, I love you, too. I love you." Oh, and it did feel good. I put my hands on both sides of his face. "I love you."

He sat up, alert, and pulled me on top of him, smiling. It was his turn to listen now.

~.~.~.~.~.


	20. Chapter 19: Leftovers

**AN: **Whew! Sending love and many thanks to Branching Inward's beta (happymelt) and prereaders (midsouthmama and faireyfan) who are amazing.

**Playlist:** Professor Booty by the Beastie Boys (Link is on profile if you want it)

~.~.~.~.~.~.

**Chapter 19: Leftovers**

This day had already gone haywire, and it was barely 10:00 a.m. I flopped into my seat, peeling off my scarf and gloves in the sweltering train car. This always happened in that transition from frenzied race-against-the-clock to settle-in-and-wait. I let my breathing calm while I mentally retraced the morning.

It all started with ignoring my alarm at 6:00 a.m. Then I was scrambling to toss my toiletries into a bag, eating a crumbly breakfast leaning over the kitchen sink, and saying a quick—okay, ten-minute—goodbye to Edward. Somewhere in there, I know I took a shower. I grabbed coffee at the Greyhound station, found it was undrinkable, and was stuck holding the full, lukewarm cup until the bus stopped again at the Amtrak depot. Heavy traffic and storm delays meant I would have missed the scheduled train departure. Fortunately, the train was delayed as well, and I squeaked on board in time. Just barely.

The train's smooth clatter provided a welcome counterpart to my scattered, stressed thoughts. I tried to focus on matching my breathing to the gentle vibration and noise, enjoying the novelty of the uniformly white scenery flying steadily past the window. The snow was thick. Driving to Chicago would have been a terrible idea—a worse delay than this, even, not to mention harrowing and probably unsafe. I took out my book and laid it on the small armrest table, but the truth was I was contemplating a nap.

Until my phone rang. I smiled and pressed it to my ear, ever curious about how Edward would surprise me this time.

"Since when do they carry seven varieties of potatoes at the Pick-n-Save?"

"Wow. Is that your definition of an excuse to call me?"

"I don't need an excuse. But Esme's not answering her phone, and I'm at the grocery store on Thanksgiving morning. It's a madhouse. I'm afraid for my life, a little." I could hear the sounds of amplified price-checks and grocery store carts clanking in the background, Edward's jacket rustling in the foreground.

I heard him speak to someone, his mouth turned away from the phone. "Can I help you reach that, Mrs. Cope?...what, this one? These?...okay. Here you go…it's my pleasure. Save me some leftovers, yeah? Have a good one."

He turned his attention back to me, lowering his voice. "Oh, my God. That woman almost caused a lemon avalanche."

I could easily picture it, and the mental image made me crack up. Mrs. Cope's boobs were like torpedoes in that bra of hers. "So, potatoes. What's the Cullen family usual—mashed? Roasted?"

"Mashed. My mom is old school when it comes to Thanksgiving. Although…it's like it won't be 'the usual' without you there. Even though you've never been."

"Oh, don't start. We agreed." I felt a responsibility to be with Charlie in Chicago this year, and Edward had encouraged me to stick to my plan, knowing we'd be spending Christmas together in Clearwater.

"I know. I'm being a brat. Just…ignore me. I'll be seeing you real soon." He had some art events to attend in Chicago—they had materialized, conveniently—this weekend, so he was joining me there the following afternoon. That was, if I ever made it to Chicago.

"Well, I use golden creamers for mashed potatoes."

"Right. I see them."

"Just add a ton of butter and milk. Some roasted garlic cloves. This way it'll be just like I'm there."

"Huh. Well, I'll take what I can get. So, uh…entertain me while I stand in line here. It looks like two fifteen-year-olds are working the whole store. Are you almost to Chicago? Can you smell Gary, Indiana yet?"

I snorted. I was hours from detecting the distinctive industrial odors of Gary—the last stop before Chicago. "Actually, the Greyhound to Cleveland was delayed, and now the Amtrak, too. We only just pulled out."

"Oh, shit. Are you serious? What time does that put you in?"

"Mmm, about four if I'm lucky."

He groaned. I'd come to admire Edward's rather masterful sympathy technique. He would listen with grave attention for a few moments, say something supportive to acknowledge the situation, then somehow refocus me on the things that were more important to me in the big picture. I don't know how he did it without ever seeming to patronize me.

"I know you're eager to see your dad. You'll get there safe, though. I won't be wringing my hands about you driving through a blizzard. And you can read…space out…daydream about your boyfriend. And anyhow, there's no changing it now."

"Oh, no doubt. The daydreaming is already working out for me, I'll have you know. This train helps. It puts me in the frame of mind to think of you."

"Because it goes all day and all night? Because it can't, won't, and don't stop?" He knew that would make me laugh.

"Sort of. I don't know. It's solid like you." He snorted, making me snicker in response. "I mean…soothing. And dependable."

"Damn. Listen to you." He wanted to tease me, but I could tell he was a little bit taken aback. "I love you so fucking much."

Unfamiliar noises rumbled from deep in my chest. Was I purring?

"I love you, too. God, it turns me on to hear you say it. And this train…the rhythm…it reminds me of the other morning, you know. When I was on top." Waking up after the blackout had been something else. The way he moved inside me, forgetting himself, getting lost in my whispering "_I love you."_ His thumbs levering my hip bones, his husky voice openly imploring me to say it again and again.

He stifled a groan, and I knew he was remembering it, too.

"Hell, Bella. I am in a public place right now." He practically hissed into the phone, his voice pitched high.

"Well, I'm not. This train car is totally empty."

"Wh—What?" He wasn't expecting that. I hadn't exactly planned on things developing like this myself.

"Yep. Pretty sparse, thanks to this blizzard. I'm all alone."

"Um…" I could hear the beeping of the register in the background and packages crinkling. "Hold on. Don't…wait. I can't."

"Okay. Do you want me to call back and, you know…record myself…on your voicemail?"

He laughed a weak laugh. "Oh, shit. What are you doing to me? No. I mean yes, but—I can't…I'm gonna hang up and text you."

"Uh, okay."

"Bye."

"Bye."

I waited a moment, biting my lip.

The text alert chimed.

Edward: WAIT FOR ME.

Hmm. Hadn't I been waiting? I typed my reply: WAIT? I M HERE.

Edward: I MEAN DON'T GET YOURSELF OFF. WAIT FOR ME, WITH U.

Oh, my God. Not what I was expecting.

Me: !

Me: AARGH. YOU TXTNG ME THAT=MAKES ME WANT TO

Edward: WANT WHAT? GET OFF OR WAIT?

Me: BOTH BOTH BOTH AARGH

Edward: SO, WAIT? YES? JUST 1 DAY

I hesitated to reply, not trying to tease him on purpose but truly assessing my own self-control. Ugh.

Me: WAITING YES #:"!&$*

Edward: JUST THINK ABOUT POTATOES

Me: HOT, CREAMY, SALTY

Me: THICK

Me: IN MY MOUTH

Edward: GOD, STOP! DO I NEED TO DRIVE TO A DESERTED ROAD

Me: NO. JUST CALL ME LATER ABOUT MUNDANE STUFF

Edward: THAT'S WHAT I JUST TRIED, REMEMBR - POTATOES

Me: O RIGHT :)

Edward: OK, PAYING CASHIER NOW. SMUGGLING CUCUMBER IN PANTS.

Me: I'LL LET YOU GO

Edward: SEE U IN 28 HRS. XO

Well. My goodness. I tilted my head up and closed my eyes, willing myself not to dwell on what would happen then. I might combust. I was definitely sleep-deprived.

Thanksgiving was such a strange holiday—so tied to a precise day and time, so all-or-nothing in that regard. It was like a yearly reckoning for people with ambiguous family loyalties. I was used to feeling so torn on Thanksgiving—between Charlie and Renee. Now I wondered if, at this time next year, I would be choosing between the Cullens and Charlie. I read for a while, graded essays, and finally let myself drift off to sleep.

~.~.~.~.~.~.

When I woke up, the sky was already darkening. I scrambled for my phone, my heart sinking when I saw that it was past 4:00 p.m. We weren't near Chicago. I tried Charlie but got his voicemail. I hoped he was at least with Ida and Vincent or his friends at the community hall. I called the Cullens and wished them all a happy Thanksgiving.

A few solo travelers and one couple had boarded the car. I wondered if some of these travelers were on their way home from a big celebration and meal or delayed on the way there like I was. I felt terrible to think that Charlie might be alone and waiting for me but grateful at the same time.

The loudspeaker announced South Bend. I sighed. I was another hour from Chicago. Then there'd be the journey to Charlie's from the train depot, and who knew what state the meal would be in. The passenger boarding now carried brown paper bags that must have been loaded with leftovers. I could smell the savory, garlicky aroma of mashed potatoes and the acid tang of balsamic green beans—just like the ones I usually made. In fact…

I raised my head, looking into a sort of mirror of my own smiling face. Charlie.

"Wha…Dad!"

I stood and helped him set the bags down, then was surprised to be swept up in a hug. Charlie wasn't prone to big displays of affection, and I was used to giving him his space, but I was suddenly aware of just how much I'd been missing him and how glad I was to see him. He smelled like aftershave and old leather jacket—that dad smell.

He'd hitched a ride here on the eastbound train, food packs nestled in towels to keep them warm, knowing from the internet how late I'd be and what time I'd hit Valparaiso. This was classic Charlie, really. He could seem reserved and aloof, but he was quietly active and engaged behind his façade, doing little things that made a difference. When I'd won a scholarship to U of C, he said he didn't want me coming home on weekends to take care of him, and he'd enrolled himself in a "Healthy Meals for One" course at the community center. When I was rehabilitating my lungs this past winter and spring, he'd bought a home treadmill for whenever I visited—and even started running himself, in solidarity with me.

Seeing him now, I was grateful all over again for the way he always prepared and followed through—and the way he saw, without making a fuss, that I needed a simple, low-key celebration this year.

We ate and visited together that final hour, Charlie making little observations every so often: "Your hair looks different."

He said a few words about the year that had passed and listed some of the new things he was grateful for, including "Bella's new friend Edward, and the rest of those Cullens I hear about, and all the love that surrounds her."

I squeezed his hand, and we enjoyed a nice dinner out of plastic containers, and that was that.

~.~.~.~.~.~.

Friday morning passed in a blur, forgotten details of this one-time life of mine rushing at me without warning, blending with new observations, all against a backdrop of energetic waiting: my eagerness to share my city with Edward.

Waking up in my old double bed, hearing the radiators clanking and water rushing through the pipes to someone's shower.

My drafty room, empty of my childhood possessions, unless you counted a few knick-knacks that seemed to go more with the apartment than with me.

The brand new pair of slippers and robe—a plain blue cotton wrap, most likely from Chinatown, just to the north of us—hanging on a hook for me near the closet door. More of Charlie's under-the-radar thoughtfulness.

Lake Michigan during my morning run, miniature glaciers of broken ice crowding the shore, a smattering of runners puffing out steam here and there along the path, rousing perturbed pigeons. Long shadows cast by the midrise apartment buildings.

Charlie, padding into the kitchen at the first sounds of my pancake batter hitting the griddle.

Charlie, proudly showing off the houseplants he had managed to keep alive.

And finally, the doorbell. Edward. I rushed down two flights of stairs to greet him. His rental car was parked askew among the mounds of crusty snow, just like every other car on the street. He kissed me hello—hard and slow, not for very long, a promissory note. He made a show of adjusting his wayward hair in the front door's glass inset, preparing to meet Charlie.

When they shook hands within the apartment, Edward's eyes fixed on Charlie's for a beat longer than was strictly necessary but not so long as to seem creepy. Charlie, for his part, went with his signature evaluation stare-down. He was big on reading body language. He always said it was the thing that kept him in demand as a security guard—his ability to sniff out troublemakers. I elbowed him.

"Dad. Cut it out."

He smirked and folded his arms. "So, Edward, you've got some business that brings you to town, I hear?"

"Well, sir, I'm making myself useful as much as I can, but the truth is I'm here for Bella. And to meet you. So…thank you for having me in your home."

"Of course. You're very welcome. How's that truck of hers running?"

"Um, I really don't know. Bella leaves all that stuff to Rose—that's my sister-in-law, for all intents and purposes. I know Rose put some snow tires on it."

"She did, huh?" Charlie's expression was unreadable—his police face.

"Yes, sir. She put some on my Volvo, too. I mean…we're all very safety-minded about winter driving, is what I'm trying to say. Not that I can't change my own tires."

Poor Edward. I broke in. "Dad, Edward is perfectly capable. He fixed my hot water boiler last week. And you should ask me how my truck is running."

Edward gave me a look that suggested he wanted to roll his eyes at me.

Charlie lightened up. "Aww, I'm just stirring the pot, you know. It's good to meet you, Edward. Call me Charlie."

I showed Edward around, watching him squint at the pictures on the bookshelves and fridge, amused to find myself taking stock of his long, lean body inside this space. _As tall as the medicine cabinet. Shoulders wider than this window frame but not that one._

We spent the afternoon walking around the neighborhood, hampered by snow and ice. I showed him the lake and some of the beautiful old brownstones in Bronzeville. Edward met my friend Harold at the combination bakery-record store where I bought buttermilk scones and jazz albums when I was growing up. We listened to some selections on headphones, sitting side by side on the halfway broken-down sofa, sharing a scone and kissing the crumbs from each other's lips until Harold, a stickler for proper comportment, shooed us apart.

We stopped in at a neighborhood historical society that was showing quilts having to do with the Underground Railroad—the secret network that guided 'freedom seekers' from one safe house to the next on their way to the north. Directions and locations were encoded in the patterns.

Dinner that night was a get-together with Ida from the blues lounge and her gentleman friend, Vincent. She grilled me on what my house was like, and how I was keeping myself fed, and whether I got sick of seeing all the same faces every day. She seemed very interested to hear about Sue and Muddywaters. She made a gentle inquiry about how I was doing— "…_you know, this time of year_." Vincent occasionally blurted out his thoughts about Chicago's mayor, or the Bears' football season. He wasn't exactly senile; he had just lived too long to be concerned with the protocols of a conversation.

When we tucked into our dessert of cherry pie and lemon bars—Thanksgiving leftovers—Ida turned her attention to Edward. I could see that she didn't quite know what to make of him.

"Edward…Edward. Tell me, do any of your people call you Eddie?"

"No, ma'am. No one ever did call me that. Just…Edward." He scooped a bite of pie up and into his mouth. I stood to stack empty plates into a neat pile.

"Well, it seems to me you need some other sort of name. Just to have on hand as an extra." She looked back and forth between him and me as if she were putting together some sort of nickname puzzle.

Suddenly Vincent perked up. "Oh, cut the crap, Ida. Don't you know a honey boy when you see one? Edward, I'm right, aren't I? You're a fan of honey?"

Edward was too busy choking on pie crust to answer. He coughed and blew crumbs halfway across the table, covering his mouth too late, his eyebrows shooting up. I patted him on the back and glared at Vincent.

Even Charlie saw fit to intervene. "Edward, we have a famous blues man who lives in the community named Honeyboy Edwards. Vincent is just messing with you."

"Um, sure, I've heard of Honeyboy Edwards." He sipped his tea, settling down. "I don't think I deserve to share his nickname, though."

I was positively fascinated with how pink he was turning. There was something to this blushing thing.

Ida saw it, too, apparently. It was Vincent who had hit on this sensitive subject, but Ida wasn't about to let it drop. She was almost seventy, but she had a saucy cougar in her that she liked to trot out occasionally. It startled people, made them forget their facades. And it let me imagine the flirtatious girl she had once been—crafty and knowing, a tiger before she was a cougar and then an old gray panther.

Once Charlie left the room with a stack of dirty dishes, she sharpened her angle, tilting her head slyly. "But you do appreciate a little honey from time to time."

"I sure do." Edward was onto her, all right. A light flickered in his eyes as he met her gaze, wrapping an arm around my waist and pulling me until my hip was flush against his ribcage. "Not all sweet things. But I do love pie…and honey, sure. Caramel. And these lemon bars."

She watched him, a touch of glee in her eyes. "Ah-hah. You like it a little different, I guess. Some sour, some bitter, some salt. Something to take the edge off."

God help me if he didn't start kissing the lemon bar residue off of my fingertips, innocent as can be. He was beating Ida at her own game—and slaying me in the process.

She sat up straight in her chair and nodded at him, suppressing a laugh. "Hmm. Little Bell, you hold on to this one. I think he might be worth it."

I was in danger of melting into a puddle here in the dining room. I draped over Edward's shoulder, kissing the top of his head. I turned to Ida. "I think so, too. But you—you haven't called me that in years. 'Little Bell.' "

"Well, there's no reason why not. You're a grown woman any parent would be proud of, but you're still such a sweet and light little thing."

It made me smile, her assessment of me. My dad was back in the room, palms pressed flat against the table top, gazing at the middle of the table. I realized my hand was in Edward's hair, absently massaging the back of his head.

Charlie cleared his throat abruptly. "Well, I need to get my blood flowing. Does anybody want to take a walk with me down to the pub?"

I pressed Edward down in his chair in case he had any notion of standing up out of politeness. "No, Dad, you go on. We walked a lot today."

He was awkward but unambiguous about his plan to be gone for "several hours, don't wait up." In no time, coats were gathered, cheeks were kissed, and three pairs of footsteps were shuffling down the stairs, the door latched behind them.

And fifteen minutes later I was shuddering and quaking under Edward in my double bed, clothes unceremoniously shoved aside, socks still on, him with his jeans around his ankles, a grimace of concentration on his face.

The bed rocked on the floorboards, metal grating against wood. His dangling belt buckle clanked. I shifted my legs, hooking them around him more tightly. "I never knew."

"Knew what?" He was watching my tits bounce, and he snapped his head up to meet my gaze.

'That this bed could squeak so much."

He gasped and reared up, pressing his lips together. He rolled his eyes. "Oh, fuck. What are you—you never had sex in this bed? Never?"

"Never. Just you."

"Fuck, Bella." He groaned and slowed his movements, grabbing my ankles. "You have to know what that does to me. Can you flip over? I wanna really make some fucking noise right here with you."

Well, when he put it like _that_…he pulled out and I rolled onto my stomach, then rose up on my knees, twisting to look back at him. "Like this?"

I liked this look of pained surprise on his face—like he was stunned and a little mad at himself for not seeing me from this angle before now. "Mother of fucking Christ, Bella."

He kicked his jeans the rest of the way off and ran his flattened palm along my spine up to the nape of my neck and back again, stroking the curve of my ass, circling his other arm around my waist. When he positioned my hips and pulled me against him, thrusting into me hard, I gasped for air and pushed back. It felt so freeing, somehow, using the strength of my legs like this.

He was right. The bed was noisier this way. And so was I. I pressed my mouth to a pillow to muffle my high-pitched keening, but he pulled it away.

"Don't, please don't. You know I like it when you let go." Just as quickly, he bent down to my ear. "Unless—neighbors?"

"Out of town."

That was all the permission he needed. He groaned loudly, grinding into me, rocking and thrusting and grinding into me again—over and over, dazing me. I urged him on, wanting him unchecked and loose like this after so many buttoned-down hours and minutes.

"I almost can't watch. So fucking perfect. You look…oh, God, the way you arch like that. Does that make it feel better?"

I nodded, grunting, too consumed to form words.

"Do you know how fucking hot that is? What else, what else can I give you? My hand? You want my fingers?"

I gasped, feeling pure anticipation, then feeling his fingers wind their way to my clit. "Baby, you're...oh, God. Let me see how you feel. Let me hear it."

He hunched over me and pressed his mouth to my shoulder blade, sliding his fingers, his thumb, the heel of his hand against me, his cock driving inside me, his thighs strong and solid against mine. I whispered frantic pleas to him—_slower, harder, up, up_—coaxing to the surface the orgasm that had been lurking in my muscle tissue for two days.

He tightened his arms around me when I came, his light, gratified laughter tickling my ear. His hair was wet with sweat. He kept his arms wrapped around me as he resumed rocking his hips into me, rolling his forehead between my shoulder blades.

"Is this okay?"

"Yes. So good." I felt like a jellyfish, loose and glowing, surrounding him as he crushed into me again and again.

"Think you can come again?"

I shook my head no. "Too intense."

"Mmh. Okay."

I reached down to move his hands to my breasts, supersensitive now. His thumbs, God, his rough, calloused thumbs. He started shuddering slightly, my cue to arch and drop and rise more urgently.

Moments later, he lost control with a wild lurch and a shout, twining his fingers through mine, clenching, all the while pressing his teeth against my shoulder blade so that I felt his moaning voice in my bones like he knew I liked so much.

He flopped down on the bed, and I nestled in under his arm, listening to his breathing calm down.

I put my hand on his chest, feeling it rising and falling. I was feeling that strange combination of bliss and melancholy that sometimes came over me.

"Hey. Little Bell." He smoothed my hair down. "What is it?"

"Do you think it'll always be like that?"

He chuckled. "I sure as hell think so, baby. Forever."

He brought the back of my hand to his lips, kissing each knuckle.

"It's all good, you know. Maybe when I'm as old as Vincent, all I'll be able to do is kiss your fingers like this. But I have a very good memory. And you…," he kissed my fingers again, "have a very, very good memory. Everything goes into the vault. So, yes, it'll always be like that."

He grazed a thumb along the underside of my jaw, then leaned in to brush my lips with the softest, most tender kiss I'd ever felt. "And like this."

~.~.~.~.~.~.

In the morning, Charlie's overly loud rattling and clattering in the kitchen alerted us to his presence. I made sure I was presentable, reminded myself that I was 29 years old, and led Edward out to join Charlie for coffee. Charlie was eager to get back to his normal routine of loitering at the community center with his cronies; he called it "volunteering."

Edward and I took his rental car north, headed out to connect with old friends (me) and a new faculty candidate (him). Later that night was a gallery show opening for a former student of his and who knows what after that. We planned to abandon the car in a parking lot once we started drinking, then reclaim it on Sunday.

It was something I'd done I don't know how many times as an undergrad, and a flood of memories of those days came back to me—the club nights and dive bars and house parties and street fests. Clothing layers peeled away and stuffed into purses as the night wore on. Sweaty hair clipped up, mascara running. Shoes falling off. Bar tabs opened and forgotten until the next morning. The sheepish, hungover journey back to retrieve a credit card.

As I gazed out of the passenger window, my reminiscing was interrupted by flashes of the peculiar urban vignettes that spelled home to me.

The grey, crusty mounds of grime-covered snow lining the curbs—so different from Clearwater.

Slow-moving pedestrians braving the half-shoveled sidewalks, their otherwise impressive commitment to inventive fashion abandoned at the ankles for pairs of clunky sensible boots.

Edward's white-knuckle grip on the steering wheel in the middle of a six-corner intersection and his frown when I snickered at him.

Face-masked, black-clad bicyclists whizzing by, shouting warnings to one another—_door!_—never slowing, as Edward dropped me off in front of my old hangout, the Milky Way Cafe.

The misshapen bagels at the Milky Way, and Peter and Charlotte hungrily interrogating me about rural life.

The two of them listening intently to my response when they asked how I was feeling, how I was _holding up_.

Charlotte making a sound like a record scratching. "Hold on. Back up here—Sunday dinner? What is this strange custom? You cook?"

Peter pursing his lips. "Tenured? Just how old is this townie artist lovah of yours? I'm picturing Bob Ross."

The look on Charlotte's face when Edward did walk in, his candidate interview done with. _That's no Bob Ross_.

The look on _my_ face when Edward walked in. And Edward's face.

Edward, here in the Milky Way, smiling and wild haired and at home on my turf. He took off his coat. For the first time since I'd known him, he was dressed for something other than physical work: tailored black wool pants, a checkered button-down, and a charcoal grey cashmere v-neck. Somewhere between our leaving the house this morning and now, he'd added a tie. Knotted loosely, of course.

Introductions were made, and we lingered over coffee and eventually beer. I asked Edward to get me a napkin, then another napkin, just so I could watch him walk away and back again in his fitted pants. Familiar faces—Milky Way staffers who hadn't seen me in months—waved at me from behind the bar and ogled Edward. Charlotte and Peter never bored of their fact-finding mission, which Edward tolerated admirably. They hadn't ever met a boyfriend of mine, after all.

Peter turned to me while Edward and Charlotte discussed the current exhibit at the Museum of Contemporary Art.

"Isabella Marie Swan. I hate to say it, but I think the country life suits you." He squinted his eyes at me, evaluating. "Either that or you're getting laid righteously."

"Peter!" I snuck a glance to my side and saw the hint of a smirk on Edward's face, though he never skipped a beat in his conversation with Charlotte. He put a hand on my knee under the table.

"Don't hide it under a bushel, kid. It looks good on you." Peter toasted me with his beer. What could I say?

It was fun to see my friends chatting happily with Edward, sparring with him, being wound up by his stories. I entertained a brief fantasy of living here in Chicago with him—working at the Chicago History Museum or the Newberry Library, Edward teaching at the Art Institute. We'd live in a converted industrial building in the West Loop and get a dog.

I felt a tug on my hair and snapped out of my daydreaming.

"Babydoll, where'd you go? We're talking about getting dinner."

"Oh. Yeah, don't we need to get to your event?"

"We have time."

Dinner was a disorienting blur of old sense memories and new excitement: wine and ravioli and cheesecake. Edward invited Peter and Charlotte to come along to the gallery opening, and soon the four of us were piling out of a cab and picking our way down snowy Randolph street.

We stopped to give a push to some strangers whose car was spinning its wheels in the ice. Hands waved to us from the window as the freed car inched down the street.

I detected a white blur at the edge of my vision and heard shrieks of laughter behind me. Edward recoiled from the surprise of a snowball hitting him.

_What the hell?_ I spun on my heel, losing my balance and tipping into the arms of a huge man with a cigarette dangling from his lips. He helped me get my footing on the ice and shook his head at his blond friend beside him.

Edward slinked toward the woman, calmly greeting her with a gentle shoulder-hug—until she yelped. He was shoving a handful of snow down the back of her jacket. He laughed as she twisted away.

"Jane, you haven't changed." He pulled me over and wrapped his arms around my waist. "Bella, meet Jane. She's why we're here."

"Oh, Jane! It's nice to meet you. Congratulations on the show. I'm excited to see it." I introduced Peter and Charlotte.

She nodded toward the big bruiser. "That's Demetri. It's our joint show."

They discarded their cigarette butts, and we followed them through a glass door and up some stairs to the gallery. Dozens of pairs of eyes drifted toward us discreetly, noticing Jane, then lingering on Edward. I had forgotten to think about the fact that there would be people here who knew him before…and people who didn't know Edward at all, but who knew E.M. Cullen, the art star.

He made a point of focusing intently on the artwork, somehow using his body language to keep people from approaching. I recognized that posture—though I hadn't seen it for many weeks now. This time, it was because he didn't want to take the focus off of Jane and her big night.

After the initial stir subsided, Edward relaxed and circulated around the room. It was fun to see him greeting old acquaintances and meeting new people. He was charming and gracious, more than once turning the conversation to Jane's delicate, meticulously assembled sculptures. I wandered with Peter and Charlotte, then on my own, observing the way people watched him, overhearing snippets of whispered gossip. _He's working again. Best work of his life, he told me. No, no one's seen it. January. Site-specific. Ohio. _A couple of people snapped pictures of him with their phones, which he pretended not to notice. A press photographer moved to take his portrait, and he pulled Jane and Demetri into the shot.

I found him again when the crowds thinned, and we stopped to nibble on appetizers being offered on little silver trays. "It's good work. She doesn't need my endorsement."

"But she can't have you not give it, either." I could see that the energy in the room had amped up since he showed up. The gallery owner was in the process of placing yet another red dot on yet another placard—signaling that the sculpture had been sold.

He acknowledged it without protest. "Yeah."

He scanned the room, taking in the changing ratio of well-heeled collectors to art students in skinny jeans, mullets, and geek-chic glasses. Peter and Charlotte were deep in discussion with the cater waiter across the room. I recognized some familiar faces from U of C and one person who'd been in my biology class in high school.

Suddenly Edward did a double take. Panic stiffened his features, and he laughed weakly. "Oh, shit. Bella. This isn't—um…"

Whatever he meant to say, it was too late. A shadow swept over me, and I turned to see an incredibly tall, striking woman hovering over me. Her cheekbones cast shadows of their own under the gallery lights.

She was smiling widely, her eyes lit up with laughter. This woman was so beautiful, she might as well have been an alien. A pretty, curly-haired woman next to her smirked.

"Zafrina." He was cringing, lips pressed together. "Maggie, hi. Bella, I'd like you to meet Zafrina and Maggie. Old Newcoven friends."

She reached out a hand to me, her long fingers wrapping around mine. Maggie followed, her eyes flitting nervously to Edward's face. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up. _You knew he had a past, _I told myself._ It was only a matter of time_.

Zafrina turned her attention back to Edward, pursing her lips. "You are a sight for sore eyes. Why are you looking at me like that? I just came over here to thank you, you know."

I was deciding how to interpret that when Maggie piped up, her voice sharp and sardonic. "So did I."

_Her, too?_ But then she laced her fingers through Zafrina's and pulled her close, some private signal between them that softened Zafrina's manner instantly. I felt confused. Maybe the wine was getting to me. I threw my head back to take another sip, only to find my clear plastic Dixie cup was empty.

"I have the urge to say this every time I see you. Really, Edward…I can never thank you enough for being such a good sport."

Maggie sat down in a chair and snagged a bottle of wine from a nearby table.

Edward was turning red, his eyes sending her a silent signal of some kind. I was sure my own eyes were saucers. He turned to me, tugging at his mop of hair. "Baby, um …Zafrina and I sort of…tried to have an affair once. Five years ago."

"You…tried?"

He winced, his eyes searching the ceiling like he was looking for an escape hatch.

"I'm gay, Bella." She shook her head at some newly surfaced memory. "Edward helped me sort things out in a rather decisive way. That's all."

Edward twisted a finger inside the collar of his shirt. "Zafrina was married to Garrett Sanders—in Theater. You know him?"

I nodded my head. I'd seen him around campus. Maggie refilled my cup full of red wine, taking a swig from her own.

Zafrina shook her head. "On paper only. We were finalizing the terms of our divorce at the time."

Edward furrowed his brow, as if only just remembering this detail.

"I was having a hard time sorting out whether it was just Garrett I wasn't attracted to, or all men. So I came on to Edward…as a sort of…trial. It was really stupid, but it was a confusing time."

"And…" I raised my eyebrows. A sort of social-historian hiccup compelled me to feel interested in this arrangement, as much as the idea of Edward sleeping with this Amazon supermodel made me want to throw up.

"And nothing." He shook his head, clearly flummoxed at having this conversation in these circumstances. "Trial, error. I was like human kryptonite to her libido, Bella."

Awkward. "So…you're telling me…Edward just didn't register on your radar. He was your litmus test for giving up men forever?"

She looked at me sideways, nodding her head slowly, a complicated smile on her face. "Not a blip."

I sat down heavily on a plastic chair. A vision came to mind of Edward crashing and burning in an attempt to seduce her. I fought back an inappropriate fit of giggles.

Edward's eyes were wide, nervous. Peter and Charlotte noticed us from across the room and looked at each other with eyebrows raised. What does one say?

Edward squatted down next to my chair, forearms on his knees "Look, I've told you before…I'm not proud of the way I was living my life then. Zafrina, I was so reckless with your feelings. With Garrett's, even."

"Garrett? Does he give you a hard time around town or something? Because he was already with Kate by then."

"That's not it. Actually—you know, I had forgotten about Garrett and Kate." He glanced around to see if anyone else was in earshot. "It's just…I wasn't in the habit of thinking about consequences, and I'm sorry."

She shook her head, looking at me to gauge my reaction. "I was using _you_, Edward. I should apologize. You were sweet, you know that? You didn't do anything but hold me all night and let me cry about hurting him."

"Well, this finally got weird!" Maggie stood up. She blinked and rubbed her temples.

Suddenly Peter was hovering above me, Charlotte next to him. "This situation calls for the Golden Onion."

"The what, now?" Edward squinted into the light.

"It's an all-night pancake house. Well, pancakes and onion rings, I guess. Not together. Unless that's what you like. No judgment."

"Did someone say Golden Onion?" Now here was Jane, flapping her arm to get Demetri's attention "Hi, Mags. Zaf. Can we come? I made some money tonight, and I'm hungry."

~.~.~.~.~.~.

The 2:00 a.m. pancake house crowd was always an interesting mix of drunk college students, club kids just getting started, food-service workers stopping by after their own shifts ended, and old-timers with nowhere else to go. I smiled and waved at a crew of B-boys who hung out at the nightclub next door to Ida's. Tonight there were a lot of leather-clad greasers, too, fresh from some sort of motorcycle convention. No, wait—too many handlebar moustaches.

"International Mister Leather show," Jane guessed. Peter opened a copy of the free weekly newspaper and spun it around so we could see the full-page Mister Leather ad.

"You're right."

The eight of us were spread across two pushed-together tables, sobering up over iced tea under the bright lights. Edward, sitting diagonally across from me, caught my eye every once in a while, fidgeting and looking like he wanted to be anywhere else. I blew my paper straw wrapper at him.

"I love you, you weirdo. Now start having some fun."

Charlotte, next to him, froze, her tongue poking the inside of her cheek.

"What? It's true." I looked around and felt a surge of energy and happiness. Maybe it was the aroma of French toast and hash browns. Maybe I was tipsy. I don't know. "I've never felt this way in my life. And I'll tell you something else: He loves me, too."

Yep, I was definitely drunk. For once in his life, Edward didn't seem to be fretting. He grinned and signaled the waitress, ordering an extra portion of strawberry topping for his waffle.

~.~.~.~.~.~.

Back at Charlie's, we crept out of my window onto the fire escape, huddling in our coats and watching the sky turn pink over the lake.

"Do you sometimes wish we would have met as teenagers, Edward?"

"Hmm. That's an interesting notion." He rested his head against mine. "I can see why it might seem appealing. All those years like a missed opportunity. The need to catch each other up…the storytelling can get exhausting, right? And nights like tonight. The uncomfortable surprises. Zafrina."

He maneuvered us back inside my room, rubbing my arms to warm me.

"That wasn't as bad as you made it out to be in your mind, you know."

He huffed. "Right. I was merely a bad lay. Not a home wrecker."

"Shut up. It wasn't you; it was your whole gender."

"It felt like we were wrestling, Bella. But with tongues. It was humiliating."

"How humbling for you. Now you know how mere mortals feel about a quarter of the time." I wound my hands in his hair.

"No." He feigned shock.

"It's true. Lots of people live their whole lives having bad sex with people they aren't attracted to." I shuddered.

"Which brings me back to my point. Without those experiences, without my past…I just didn't know before now that I wanted this. If I met you as a teenager…I probably would have blown it. I wouldn't have known how to hold on to you or even that I should."

He grazed my cheek with his nose, running it down my neck when I tipped my head back.

"I would have tried to have sex with you immediately. And I would have disappointed you."

I giggled, and he shook his head. "It's true. You don't like to be rushed."

We sat on the bed and stripped down sleepily. He slipped his tee shirt over my head. We leaned against the wall, shoulders together, still too wound up to fall asleep but too exhausted to do much else.

I pulled our blanket tight over our shoulders. "Is there anything in your past you would change?"

He was quiet for a long time.

"I can't change the past. I can't, but I—"

"What is it?" I assumed he was thinking about Tanya. Which part would he choose to change?

He did that thing he sometimes did with his jaw, clenching it, pressing his mouth against the side of my head, deciding something.

"I'll tell you what. I can't go back in time and meet your mom. I'll never know her, and I'll never know that she saw you happy with me. But you can tell me about her. You can share that with me."

I turned to look at him. That wasn't what I expected him to say—not at all. But as soon as he said it, I knew it was what I felt, too. How she would have adored him. How he would have made her smile—_if only_. He looked a little bit afraid that he had said something wrong, but most of what I saw was his earnestness.

I turned my head, and he followed my glance to an overflowing cardboard box under the desk.

He looked back at me. "Now?"

I nodded my head. And that was how I found myself cracking open old photo albums for the first time in more than a year, telling stories, burrowing into Edward's shoulder to anchor myself in the present day from time to time, letting him break the seal on another closed-up compartment of my heart.

~.~.~.~.~.~.

**AN:** Honeyboy Edwards and Bob Ross are real people, each awesome in his own way. The International Mister Leather Pageant is also real, but it takes place on Memorial Day weekend, not Thanksgiving weekend. The Golden Onion is otherwise known as the Golden Apple, and the Amtrak through Cleveland passes through closer to 3am than 10am. Also: I'll be in a tropical location and unplugged for 10 days (!) so it'll be closer to 2 weeks for Chapter 20. Thanks for reading!


	21. Chapter 20: Woods Lovely Dark and Deep

**AN: **Love to happymelt, who tirelessly betas this story, and to faireyfan and midsouthmama, who preread—I'm so lucky. Thanks for reading, everyone!

**Playlist:** Slow Show by the National

**Chapter 20: Woods Lovely Dark and Deep **

By the middle of December, winter had taken root in Clearwater. From my classroom window I could see the groomed sidewalks crisscrossing the small snow-filled clearing between the library and the student activities building. Students scurried in and out, holding their arms tight against their coats, keeping their hands tucked inside pockets. They rushed to meet friends, to retrieve packages mailed from home, to buy tea and ramen noodles for those very cold days when even the promise of social interaction couldn't tempt them out of their residence halls. A relatively sunny day earlier in the week had brought the students out to play, and they had left behind clusters of snowmen and a rudimentary igloo in the town square.

Now that Thanksgiving had passed, everyone was fixated on the end of the semester. Students would be leaving town in either one or two more weeks, depending on whether they were sitting for exams. The campus would empty out and partially shut down for the long break.

I was counting the days—not because I was escaping to warmer weather, but because I was staying. To hear the Cullens talk, the atmosphere in Clearwater changed dramatically during long breaks when the majority of the students were gone. Townspeople would flock to restaurants that were normally too crowded with rowdy young people. Faculty who stayed in town would congregate at one another's homes for leisurely dinners.

While my students worked in pairs on their final project outlines, I mapped out my calendar for the next few weeks. Phil planned a celebration—not a memorial, everyone insisted—on Renee's birthday in late January, and I'd be going to Phoenix for that. Since I'd just been back to Chicago, that added up to a lot of travel, so I'd decided to spend the holidays here. And anyway, I wanted to be with Edward.

His installation would be opening soon after New Year's. Emily had passed along rumors that Clearwater's two small inns were already booked solid with art enthusiasts and critics from as far away as New York and Los Angeles.

I sometimes entertained myself with imagining what Edward was making out at the installation site day in and day out. He would come over to my house for lunch, his clothes spattered with red translucent lacquer and blobs of paraffin or smelling like metal from the welding torch. It was on a welding day that I pulled him into me in the pantry and wrapped my body around his, coaxing him to fuck me standing up against the doorjamb, our half-eaten sandwiches abandoned next to glasses of milk beading with condensation in the warm room. I could smell the peanut butter on his breath.

His body was changing, his lean muscles turning bulkier. Whatever he was working on, it was heavy, hard labor—particularly since coming home from Thanksgiving. He asked Jasper's advice about some stretching and strengthening exercises he could do every night to lessen the risk of injury. I liked massaging his fingers and hands. I liked the gentle, humming sighs it brought out of him.

"Professor Swan?"

"Hmm—yes, Eric?" My attention snapped back to the class in front of me.

"Do you prefer MLA style for citations?"

"Oh, yes. It's a good habit if you plan to go on to grad school, you know." Daydreaming time over, I had the students hand in their project outlines and launched into our group discussion of the assigned readings.

~.~.~.~.~.~.

As soon as class was over, I bundled up for my short walk home. The snow was crusty and wet today; it was different every day of the week. I especially loved the feeling of coming in from outside—and greeting visitors as they came in. There was the ritual stomping of snowy boots at the threshold; the shedding of coats, mittens, hats, and scarves; the airing out of damp clothing above the radiators.

Edward's glasses would fog up—he didn't wear his contacts on days he was welding—and I would take them from him and set them on the mantle, and he would bring his face closer to mine first to see me, then to kiss me, and I'd press my warm skin against his cool pink cheeks.

We would heat up apple cider and huddle together on the couch and read, or do the crossword together, or laugh at dumb videos on YouTube. We'd fallen into a routine of spending weeknights at my cozy little place, close to town and the family. Alice would bake and bring pies and cookies over, or Edward and I would bring whiskey over to her place for hot toddies, or we'd all head over to Carlisle and Esme's for soup and scrabble. Every few nights Emmett would bake fresh bread. Weekends we spent at Edward's, hiding away from the world and stretching our limbs in the wide-open, light-filled space. Winter was just as I'd hoped.

I felt that way until Sunday, at least…or maybe I should say Friday, when the sequence of events that led to my predicament was set in motion.

We were at Edward's, winding down after an early stir-fry dinner. I paged through poetry collections online looking for something to read at Renee's celebration get-together. I kept coming back to Robert Frost, but I wasn't convinced yet. It didn't quite feel right.

Edward, meanwhile, read the galleys of my book, which was being published by an academic press. It wasn't a big deal—I'd be happy if a few dozen college libraries ordered copies—but it was the type of publishing that made it more likely that I'd be offered a permanent position. I knew by now that was what I wanted.

The working title was still _Privacy and the Construction of Intimacy_, but I had the option to change it. Edward amused himself and me by proposing alternative titles, most of them playing up the link I made between privacy, candor, and healthy psychosexuality.

"I'm leaning toward _The Secret Garden:_ _How to Cultivate and Harvest a Lifetime Supply of Kink_. What do you think?"

"Maybe. That sure would look nice on the shelf next to Foucault's _Discipline and Punish_." Joking about postmodern theory never got old.

"Maybe something more along the lines of _Your Sacred Treasure—and BTW, I Don't Mean your Cooch_." That made me giggle. He never used the word _cooch_.

He set the book down and reached to pull my legs onto his lap. One of his wrists was wrapped in an ace bandage, bracing muscles he'd twisted awkwardly while working with heavy materials on a ladder. "I'm just finishing your chapter on teenagers and diaries."

I closed my laptop and shifted to face him on the couch. This was what he and I had talked about in my kitchen that fateful night months ago: the observation that, in cultures where young people were allowed a secure sense of privacy from puberty onward, they also tended to develop good voluntary communication skills. I had read some pretty enlightening diaries from over the decades during my research.

"Ah. Good times. The formative years."

"I promise I'm not just reading it for the parts that have to do with sex…but since it's there..." he slipped a hand around one of my ankles, "I like the idea that you have fantasies you haven't told me about yet."

I grabbed the book and pretended to search the page. "Is that in there? I thought I cut those paragraphs."

He laughed and took the book from my hands, setting it down. "No, you don't say it in so many words, but you know what I mean."

"Yeah, I do. I feel the same way." I worked my hand inside his sweater sleeve, gently massaging his forearm and wrist through his ace bandage. I watched his face for any signal that I was pressing too hard. "Will you tell me one? What's something that turns you on that I don't know about?"

"Oh, God, where do I even begin?" He laughed and rolled his head back against the sofa cushion. "You must know by now I light up like a pinball machine at the stupidest stuff."

He bent his head toward me. The feeling of his face in the crook of my neck, his breath and lips, was familiar to me now, but the thrill never faded. It was like my own personal _on_ button.

"If people didn't get turned on by stupid stuff, the human race would die out. Just give me a 'for example'."

"Okay. Here's one. Today when we were walking back to campus after lunch, you looked so cute in your puffy coat and mittens and everything, with your pink cheeks…don't laugh! I had the impulse to just pull you into the snow bank and go at it on the spot."

"In broad daylight?"

He raised his eyebrows. "That's your objection? Daylight? Not, I don't know, being pantless in the snow?"

I glanced down at what I was wearing—a long, loose wool skirt warm enough for winter. "I never said it was an objection."

He looked at me, searching my face warily. This was how this worked. I asked him to tell me something private, and I needed to let him feel safe answering me. And anyhow, I kind of liked the idea. So I kept talking.

"Do you think it's something about the spontaneous on-the-spot aspect? Or is it the winter gear? Maybe you just want me wearing more clothes." I felt a tickle deep in my abdomen when his eyes crinkled with laughter. "That's it, isn't it? _I wish I could just get her to be less naked_." I made myself laugh, mimicking the deep timbre of his voice.

He laughed—a throaty, rumbling sound. "That is definitely not it. I think it's the cold-hot thing. The contrast. I have this image of…well, seeing your breath when you come."

Now I had the same image, only of him. I looked at him for a moment. His skin was flushed just above the collar of his sweater, and his eyes had that dark, flinty gleam. I swallowed. "Jesus, Edward."

I looked out the window. The evening sky was clear and bright, and a thick layer of smooth snow extended from one end of Edward's field to the other.

"Let's go. Put on your snowboarding pants."

"What, really? Isn't it too cold?"

"It's not that cold. It's clear, too. I think the stars will be really beautiful." I was already ransacking the outerwear basket for a pair of thigh-high leg warmers to pull on under my skirt, which earned a nod of approval.

Soon we were slogging through the ankle-deep snow in our heavy boots, making snow angels, and admiring the gleam of moonlight all around us. I rolled on top of him and arranged a little pillow of hard-packed snow for his head to rest against. He was smiling crookedly even before I sat up and tugged the layers of my long, loose skirt out from in between us.

"What do you think? We can always go back inside if it's not working. And…I don't want to reinjure your arm."

He shook his head. "Not a concern."

He sat up, half-kneeling in the snow, and I straddled him. There was some logistical maneuvering.

"Those pants are waterproof, right?"

"Um, in theory. When they're…when they're buttoned, yes."

"Are you getting snow in your crack?"

"Sort of. A little. Don't worry, it feels good. That's a hot area." I was glad he could laugh at himself. It was strange feeling so little skin-to-skin contact. It made me notice his face more. That and his fingertips poking out of the ends of fingerless gloves.

He leaned in to warm my face with his, breathing onto my skin. Like I always did when he was this close to me, I turned it into a kiss, relishing his response, feeling every little grunt and the clicking of our teeth.

"You really want to try this?"

I nodded. I felt his cold fingertips graze my inner thigh, and I yelped.

"Sorry. What is—are you wearing underwear?"

"Oh, I forgot!" My hand flew to cover my mouth and the giggles pouring out of it.

"Swan. That's poor planning." He snickered, half in frustration, nipping at my earlobe. "There's no way I'll get them off over your boots."

"Which ones are they?"

"I feel a little ribbon thing at the front. They're those purple ones."

"Oh, I don't care about those. Can you tear them off or something?"

"Yeah, nice try. It's a pretty strong seam."

"What about, just…push it to the side?" His fingers were warmer now, and I was getting hotter, trembling with nervous energy.

"Um, okay." He took his hands out from under me and whipped off his half-gloves. In an instant I felt his fingers again, tugging at the fabric of my underwear, and then the head of his cock, hard and silky and warm. My breath caught—it always did—knowing he would feel how much I wanted him. He exhaled sharply.

"Oh, that feels good." I lifted up a few inches to help out, leaning back on my mittened hands in the snow. "Is that working?"

"I think so. Oh…God." That would be a yes. A definite yes. A cloud of misty air puffed out of his gaping mouth.

"Uhh." As I adjusted to feeling him inside me, I could see his face was flushed, beads of sweat forming at his hairline. I pushed the fleece-lined hood of his heavy coat back and watched vapor rise.

"Is that okay?" He had his bandaged hand pressed against my back, the other working its way up and down my upper thigh, between my underwear and my wooly leg warmers. "So soft."

Something about the situation made me feel like a furtive teenager, stealing opportunities for privacy with no regard for comfort. I'd never even done that when I _was_ a teenager. All in all, it wasn't anything for the record books—I missed the feeling of his skin, and it frustrated me—but it was fun and different, and it felt good to laugh with him.

There was a moment where a shadowy expression passed over his face—a flicker of a memory. A different hour on a different wintery night spent immobilized on that dreadful footbridge, I imagined. The moon would have been just this bright, the snow just this fresh. That should have occurred to me. I chucked off my mittens and splayed my fingers across his face, holding eye contact with him.

"Hey. Come back. Edward." He nodded, drawing in a deep breath. His eyes sharpened, his focus back in the present now. "We can go inside at any time. We can do whatever you want."

He was sweating. I plunged my hands into the snow and came up with a dripping handful. As I packed it into my palm and pressed it to his pulsing, exposed neck, he gasped and rolled his head back. A tiny rivulet of melted snow tricked down his throat, and I caught it with my tongue, sweet and cool and salty with sweat. I wove my wet hand into his hair and felt him shudder. He twisted his head to reach my wrist with his lips and teeth. His skin was hot under my cool hands, and he grew harder inside me as I grazed his face with more fresh snow, following the trail of wetness with my mouth. Abruptly, he seized my head in his hands and pressed his face close, binding his mouth to mine with a bruising kiss that I felt in my spine. He finally lifted his head with a gasp.

"Bella, I need to be inside. Indoors, I mean. I can't come like this; I keep thinking you're cold. I'm gonna stand up. Hold my pants up while I walk, okay?"

I did. He eased out of me and cupped my ass with his good arm, lifting me with him as he stood. I wrapped my legs around his torso as we shuffled inside. We made it as far as his ground-level workshop, where he sat me on a wooden table, laid me back, and reached up to pull the chain on a hanging light bulb. In the arcs of shadow and light swinging back and forth, he stripped off my boots and leg warmers.

He cursed under his breath when my legs were bare, smoothing his hands and mouth along my skin urgently. He drew his thumbs up the backs of my thighs, pausing to massage the backs of my knees, to palm my calves, easing my legs up until they rested on his shoulders.

His face, framed between my ankles, was on fire with need. He peeled my purple underwear up my legs and off, groaning when he reconnected with me, every last barrier finally gone. Then he was openly frantic, unrelenting, taking us both to the edge and over it, our voices echoing strangely in the concrete room. He bent over my body and brushed sawdust away from my face, easing me out of my coat, lifting me into his arms, whispering my name into my hair.

~.~.~.~.~.~.

On Saturday night, I felt a few sniffles and a tickle in my throat. I took a zinc tablet immediately and drank some hot water with an Emergen-C packet dissolved in it, but by Sunday afternoon I had a full-fledged cold.

I made a run to the Pick-n-Save and was perusing their paltry medicine shelf when Edward texted me with a weather report. He was out at Sam's picking up materials for his installation.

Edward: BIG WINTER STORM COMING.

I glanced toward the store window. It was definitely snowing.

A second text came in.

Edward: PLEASE DON'T DRIVE.

Well, there was no getting around at least a little bit of driving.

Me: AM RUNNING ERRANDS NOW. I HAVE SEEN SNOW BEFORE, JSYK

Edward: THIS ISN'T LIKE IN CHICAGO. I HAVE SAM'S TRUCK IN CASE WE NEED ANYTHING. I'LL COME GET YOU.

Me: THAT'S EXTRA TRIPS. AND WITH YOUR ARM? NOT NECESSARY.

Edward: YOU HAVE GOOD TIRES ON THAT TRUCK BUT NOT A SNOWPLOW

Why was I fighting him on this? I considered just asking him to pick me up some Robitussin at the pharmacy, but I knew he would freak out about me getting a cold from romping in the snow. He'd feel responsible.

Me: AND YOU DO?

Edward: YES

Oh. Right, Sam's truck. I sighed.

Me: OK, HEADING HOME TO BEAT THE WORST OF IT. XO

And I did intend to head straight home. I really did…until I started coughing so hard my throat felt raw before I even got out of the parking lot. It had been a while since coughing fits could do real damage to my lungs, but they scared me. I needed to take something, and these Pick-n-Save cough drops weren't helping. I calculated the distance to the pharmacy—only a half-mile out of the way—and decided it was worth the risk to save Edward having to make a special trip with his injured arm. That was what I told myself, at least. I called Carlisle on the way there for a recommendation, and he offered to phone in a prescription for cough suppressant with codeine.

Picking up the prescription wasn't a problem. It was getting back to Edward's that threw me off course—literally. The wind whipped at my truck and blew drifts of snow clear across the road. How did it accumulate so fast? A small line of cars built up, which was unheard of in Clearwater. Up ahead, flashing lights indicated some type of problem, and soon I saw the trail of cars was being redirected off of Main Street. According to the patrolman directing traffic, fallen trees and branches were common with the first big windy snowstorm of a season. I'd have to take the long way around.

That might have worked, except that I started coughing again, and my teary-eyed vision combined with the blustery snow meant I needed to drive at a snail's pace. I was suddenly uncertain just how long this detour would be. My chest tightened, which pained the muscles around my ribs. I finally gave in and groped for my phone to call Edward, only to find there was no signal.

I looked longingly at the package beside me on the seat, knowing that I couldn't take anything while driving. By now, my head was pounding. How long had I been out and about? The phone showed about an hour since Edward's last text. Crap. He was going to be pissed. I searched around the truck for an old napkin to cough into and found a package of Kleenex in my glove box along with some granola bars, a small flashlight, and a pair of road flares I had never seen before. Edward.

Suddenly, I saw a sign for Cranbrook Road. I knew that road. I pulled over to the shoulder and rummaged for my map, confirming that this road led back to Edward's. It did, and it would cut miles off of my detour. But what if there were trees down on this road, too? It wasn't blocked off...and in the worst-case scenario, I imagined I could get home on foot. Home? To his home. Whatever.

I should have seen the signs of what was happening to me. Between finding my way on these vaguely familiar roads and my distracting and painful cough—not to mention stubbornness about taking care of myself in the snow—I wasn't thinking clearly, or I never would have turned down that side road. I never would have found myself, moments later, spinning my wheels in a snow bank, angled somewhere between the road and the shoulder. I never would have made the decision to walk forward a full mile into the woods, instead of back a half mile toward the main road. And I never would have decided to down a mouthful—more or less—of narcotic-laced cough medicine midway through my long march.

I remember standing between two large trees to get a break from the relentless icy wind. I remember taking careful steps, finding the driest spots, avoiding slippery rocks and branches, then later simply plowing through the sludge indiscriminately, propelling myself forward with brute force. I remember cursing my decision to ever leave Phoenix. I remember sitting down on a log for a long while. A vision of Edward's face in the snowy moonlight on Friday night came to me—the flash of haunted panic in his eyes. Then Robert Frost: _I have promises to keep._ I rose again and trudged forward. Then snow-blindness. A curious numbness in my hands.

The next thing I was aware of was the column of light spilling out from Edward's doorway, Edward pressing a phone to his backlit head. "Oh, thank Christ. She's here. I'll call you back."

His heavy footsteps on the stairs. Why couldn't I find the steps? Why couldn't I lift my foot?

"Goddammit, B. What happened to coming straight home?"

He got closer, and he made a softer prop to lean on than the wall. I couldn't focus on his face. Oh, he was warm. He was hot. But why so frowny?

"Oh, shit. Shit, shit. Baby, you're gonna be okay. What the fuck did you do?" I felt myself being lifted into the air. "Put your arms around my neck. Can you lift them? No? Oh, fucking hell."

I heard a strange mumbling noise. My own voice, but not the words I was trying to say. _Don't be mad_ was what I meant. The coughing began again—a sharp sound that should have alarmed me but only sounded foreign. I was a little bit fascinated. Then I was inside the loft, my cold and wet outerwear being peeled off of me. I must have stepped into a puddle. Something.

A warm blanket was around me. He was on the phone again. I heard words here and there. _Frostbite. I think a panic attack. Yeah—how warm?_ Now the sound of water pouring into the bathtub. He rummaged in my coat, pulling my prescription bottle out. _No, not much at all. Maybe an ounce or two. I don't know._

I started to lie down on the floor. Suddenly his face was close to mine again. "Bella? Don't go to sleep. You need to tell me if there was an accident. Were you driving on these meds? Did you hit your head at all?"

He ran his fingers all around my head, checking for bumps or cuts. His hands were shaking.

I shook my head. "No. It was…just a whole lotta snow. Cranbrook?" He cringed, picturing the shortcut I'd tried to take, then turned stoic again, covering his mouth. "So I walked. That's when I took it. Um, it's for coughing. Recommended." Based on the way he was nodding, I was pretty sure I got most of that out the way I intended.

When he spoke again, it was into the phone. "No. I don't think she hit her head…um, no, don't try. The roads…yeah, I'll call again."

My jeans and socks were being peeled off of me. My sweater and thermal followed. My limbs were like heavy blocks of flesh attached to my body. He hesitated a second before delicately stripping off my underwear and bra, rolling his eyes at me when I made some sort of strange whistling noise.

"Come on, focus. Work with me here. It's not hot, but it's going to feel hot, okay? Just for a minute."

As soon as my feet touched the water, I recoiled, but he was supporting my full weight. Water splashed onto his flannel shirt. "All the way in. It's the only way to keep your circulation even."

Once I was sitting in the tub, wincing, he pulled his arms out. He was soaked to the elbows. I watched him unravel his wet ace bandage and strip off his flannel.

He knelt next to the tub in his jeans and undershirt, warming his hands in the water before pressing them to my face. My teeth were chattering, but my toes and fingers burned.

"It's good that it burns, sweetie. I know it hurts. If they stayed numb, it might mean serious frostbite."

I realized the droning noise I kept hearing was my own voice, but I didn't have any idea what I might be saying. I mumbled something and tried to pull his face close to mine. He looked so warm and soft to me.

He shook his head, pulling back. He continued scooping warm water onto my head and hair. "Stop it. Yes, I am angry with you. We'll talk about it later. Can you wiggle your toes?"

I wiggled. He let out a huff of air and turned the tap on again, filling the tub with warmer water. It felt good.

He stood and switched on the gas fireplace, sending a wall of warm air toward me, and then he was on the phone again, pacing.

"I don't think she has frostbite. Just frostnip. But now she keeps talking about a DNR." He looked my way. I scowled. "Still kind of delirious. No, she's saying…'you shouldn't have tried to protect me' and 'no more coughing now'. And something about a DNR, lifting a DNR?"

He was quiet for a few moments. Listening. His eyes were on the floor.

"Well, I don't know what's worse. Bella having a DNR order or her mother not having one. I mean, fuck it, I do know what's worse, and I'm glad it's not an issue. She's not in any danger whatsoever. I mean, right? Can you just…tell me again, Carlisle?"

I was starting to feel the haze lift. I was feeling the raw burn in my throat and soreness in my ribs again. Beneath that, my heart ached. What had I done?

~.~.~.~.~.~.

After a twenty-minute bath, my delirium had given way to sheepishness. My toes and fingers hurt like hell, my chest rattled, and I had some new issues about Renee to contend with, apparently. Worst of all, I had let Edward down.

He held up a big bath towel and helped me out of the tub, discreetly checking my skin tone while he patted me dry. He enveloped me in a big pair of flannel pajamas and his terry cloth robe, which wrapped around me almost twice. I had a vision of myself as a plush animal in a double-breasted suit.

He had remade the bed with clean, soft white sheets while I took my bath, and he tucked me under them and a heavy down comforter. I was too exhausted to protest when he retreated to the front hall, taking his phone with him. I fell asleep.

~.~.~.~.~.~.

When I woke up again, all the lights were out, but the fireplace was still blazing. Edward was lying atop the blankets beside me, still wearing his clothes. He stared straight up at the ceiling.

I twisted around to face him, groaning at the pain in my chest and ribs. I noticed four of my fingers were bandaged, the 'flesh-colored' Band-Aids standing out against my red, cracked skin. Edward brought an arm around me but didn't move his eyes from up above. Shadows flickered on the ceiling.

"I'm sorry that you're so sick. And I'm sorry you got stuck in the snow and had to walk a mile in the storm. But I'm still upset with you, and I don't understand why you didn't just tell me what you needed. I have this exact fucking prescription in my medicine cabinet."

I nodded into his shoulder, and he turned his head to look at me.

"I thought we were finished with this business about me being overprotective. I know you're a capable person. But these storms are fucking serious. I need to know that you hear me."

"I know. I didn't mean it like that, really. It was impossibly stupid of me…I just didn't expect it to get so bad so fast. It got out of control. Then the cars were all detoured, and then I thought I could take a shortcut…and I guess I was having an anxiety attack. And after what happened with Tanya—"

"No." He sat up and drew his knees to his chest, pressing on his eyelids with both hands. "Like hell. Don't even fucking say it! It would have been a hundred times worse, Bella. Infinity times worse. I mean no disrespect to her, but it's the truth. Have you heard me say that I love you? That I am in love with you?"

"I did. I do. But…" I broke off, wracked with a coughing fit. Edward helped me sit up alongside him. He started rubbing my back.

"But what?"

I took a deep breath. "I was afraid to tell you I had a little cold because I thought you would blame yourself. And—"

"Well, you know what? I would have. Actually, I do—now. But you would rather lie to me?"

"I didn't think of it like that. I wanted to tell you, just…after it was under control. But then it turned into a worse cold."

"Bella, you've always been honest with me. It's so important to me. You have no idea."

"I didn't want you to have a negative association after being so open about what you want to explore in our sex life."

"So, you hid your cold from me—and nearly lost some fingers and toes—because you don't want me to cut you off cold turkey from doing it in the snow?" That got an uncomfortable laugh out of me.

"You know what I mean."

"Can't we talk these things through?" He shook his head, his forehead creasing. "Don't start metering out honesty with me. We can't be honest and forthcoming with one another about sex and not about everything else. It doesn't work that way."

I blew my nose and threw the tissue into a trashcan near the bed. "I'm sorry. I agree with you, and…I'm sorry."

He wrapped both arms around me and rested his chin on my head. "I'm not going to kiss you—but only because your germs terrify me."

I laughed, feeling heartened by the conversation. He tightened my blanket around me and cleared his throat. "Um, there's something else."

"What is it?"

"You kept talking about some sort of 'Do Not Resuscitate' order. While you were delirious."

I nodded.

"Well, it freaked me out, so I called your dad."

I shifted to face him. "You called Charlie?" That was the call he had made from the front hall.

"I just didn't know. Honestly, I envisioned taking you to the E.R. and them refusing to treat you or something. I thought it was a DNR for you, and I wanted to get it torn up. I don't know how it works."

"Well, I don't have that type of order on file. And anyway, that's not how it works. It only applies to certain very specific life-prolonging measures and situations." I decided now was not the time to mention that only a patient can 'tear up' a DNR. That's the whole point of one, in fact.

He nodded. "Charlie explained to me about your mom not having a DNR. You've mentioned this to me before…but I didn't know she had one and retracted it."

I shook my head. "She did it because it was me donating the lung. She thought she should fight extra hard to stay alive, I guess, to show me she was grateful."

"Why didn't you write about it in your journal?"

"I skipped over some things. You'll see some gaps if you look. It was…too hard."

He cocked his head to the side and clasped my hands in his. We were facing each other now, sitting cross-legged on the bed. "Well, Charlie says something different about that DNR."

I sighed. I had heard his theory.

"He says she was just scared, babe. He says she saw how confident the surgeons were, and she wanted to feel just as confident, so she got rid of anything associated with the possibility of failure."

I would never forget the faces of those surgeons. I'd had confidence in them; we all did. And as far as I knew, they did everything in their power to help her—before, during, after. They had tried to talk her back into the DNR, with proper reasoning and professionalism. But she insisted.

Edward sighed, massaging my shoulders. "I don't want to press the issue. But…I worry that you…did the most loving thing possible and wound up feeling like the outcome didn't have the effect you hoped for. Talk about negative associations."

I had no response to that. _Not the effect I'd hoped for_. It had shattered me and everyone involved. I just nodded, looking down at the crumple of blankets between us.

"Just don't be reluctant to let the people you love, and who love you, know that you need help." He stroked a hand over my hair. "I mean…me. You won't hurt me by letting me help. That will never, ever hurt me."

I nodded again. "Maybe I am reluctant. I don't want to be, but I am."

"Well, you know how I feel. What I'm asking."

I lay down again, pulling him under my blanket. "I know. I'll try to be more aware of it. I _am_ trying. You're so good to me."

He got up for a moment to switch off the fireplace and kick off his jeans, then lay back down and curled around me in his boxers and undershirt. I felt like the squishy center of a snail, and he was my shell.

He hummed into the back of my neck. "I'm just getting rolling, baby. I can be so much better if you let me."

I fell asleep contemplating that. Like so much about Edward, it scared and thrilled me. For the first time since moving to Clearwater, I dreamed of Phoenix—the desert, blooming cactus fields, red dust roads, and my mother.

~.~.~.~.~.~.


	22. Chapter 21: The Things We Carry

**Playlist:**The Book of Love by Magnetic Fields (see profile for link)

Many thanks to this story's fabulous beta, **happymelt**, and amazing prereaders, **midsouthmama** and **faireyfan**. Thanks to all of you for reading!

**Chapter 21: The Things We Carry **

Here's the thing about the moments that change your life: they don't usually announce themselves as they happen. They stand out in retrospect, if at all. You realize one day that you're living a certain sort of existence, and you look back to see what your path was, how you got here. The moments are small, slight, but they accumulate. You carry them around with you, little stones rattling around in your heart, polishing one another to a shine. Or you just take an inventory and move on.

But once in a while, the hairs on your arms stand up, your chest tightens, and you see a fork in the road where there never was one—where there was no road at all, maybe. It's not behind you; it's ahead of you—just barely ahead of you. You find a part of your awareness is attuned to _what this means_ and _what to do_ because the choices you make and how you act in the next few minutes will matter.

I'd always expected that falling in love would involve a handful of those moments. The chemistry—or even fireworks—of a first kiss. That self-aware impulse, during a quarrel, to trade stubborn contrariness for real listening and compromise. And don't even get me started on sex. What worried me, though, was that over time the thrill and excitement of those moments would be found in my memory more so than my day-to-day experience. I imagined one day glancing up from my grapefruit and bran flakes, seeing Edward, his temples graying, asking him: _remember when we fell in love_? Would the memory still be strong? Would it be enough? Or would I grow more and more wistful as the years wore on, pining for the intensity of those early shining moments?

I found out I was asking myself the wrong questions. The discovery didn't come upon me all at once, of course. It took a little while to get there. But it started, I believe, in the days following my ill-conceived trek through the Blizzard of '09.

~.~.~.~.~.~.

The week started out with a whimper. My cold had given rise to a congested, achy sinus pain so extreme it roused me from sleep, and I awoke with a groan. I was in Edward's big bed. Thirsty. Feeling like I'd been run over by a truck. And…alone. I rolled onto my back, folding my forearm across my eyes. It was too quiet in here.

The bright sunlight told me it was late morning, and as I eased myself into a sitting position, I noticed a glass of water on the bedside table next to my cough medicine, hand sanitizer, lotion, and some ibuprofen. A novel I was halfway through reading. Some diced-up fruit. The tableau made me laugh weakly. Poor, sweet Edward, looking after my sorry self. My phone was there, charged up and blinking. My stomach turned just imagining the frantic messages I would find.

Lying in Edward's spot on the bed was his laptop, a couple of my favorite DVDs—Jane Eyre and a season of Arrested Development—and a Post-it note.

_Plowing Mrs. Cope_

_out of her driveway - _

_Be back soon - _

_I love you._

My heart stuttered, even as I rolled my eyes at my own corniness. It was the first time I'd seen those words in his handwriting. I smiled and peeled the note off of the computer, saving it in the inside cover of my novel.

After downing some water and a dose of Robitussin, I tied my messy hair back and straightened the twisted blankets. I wondered how long ago he had left for Mrs. Cope's. I tried to read, unable to concentrate until I finally heard the sound of a truck door slamming.

Then, instead of his footsteps on the stairs, I heard the rhythmic scraping noise of shoveling. I swung my legs over the edge of the bed and shuffled into the bathroom where a high sliver of a window overlooked the long driveway. Peering down, I could see Edward bending and heaving to throw heavy loads of snow away from the footpath leading up to the barn. I was taken aback by just how much snow there was; it reached his knees. Had it been that deep last night?

He moved quickly, and I could see the steam rising from his mouth as he worked up some heat. He kept shoveling even after a sufficient path was cleared, slicing into the thick layer of snow like he was threshing wheat. I watched him pause and rest his forearm on the shovel handle, his face serious. He turned his head up to the window, and I couldn't tell whether he could see me or just a window full of sunny glare.

I waved just in case, but it didn't seem as if he could see me. I was struck by how similar his position was to that day in the tree—and how different his disposition. Maybe it was just that I knew him better now…knew how his eyebrows knit together when he was concentrating and how they looked when he was troubled. He was troubled far less often these days.

I took a hot shower, dressed in a fresh set of flannel pajamas from Edward's dresser, and got myself back into bed. Eventually, the front door swung open, and I looked up to see Edward shuffle in carrying a paper grocery bag. His tan canvas work pants were soaked through, and snow clung to the edges of his coat.

"Hey. I saw you shoveling." My voice came out as a chalky squeak, no louder than a whisper, and the pain made me wince.

He frowned, tossing his keys onto the bookshelf and setting down the bag. "That sounds like it hurts."

I pursed my lips and shrugged. _So-so_.

"Hmmm. Don't strain it. Nothing to do today but rest." He kicked off his boots and hung his coat and scarf above the heating vent. "Mrs. Cope sent some cider. Do you think you can tolerate cider? I'll heat it."

This was his baseline-level attentiveness: the deeply ingrained politeness that he let fall by the wayside only in the most unguarded moments—moments I loved to provoke in him, moments I felt privileged to witness. Today something was bubbling below the surface. He was preoccupied.

I shook my head no, sparing my words. "Maybe some tea?"

"Sure, babe." He tidied the already spotless kitchen while he made my tea, distracting himself with tasks. "So, campus is closed for at least two days. Snow emergency. Alice and Jasper are coming over in a bit, bringing some stuff for lunch. Thought we'd play some cards."

I raised my eyebrows and glanced toward the roads I knew were thick with snow.

He smiled and shook his head. "The old-fashioned way. On skis."

He set my tea down on the nightstand and bent to kiss my forehead. Up close, I could see that he looked exhausted.

"I'm gonna take a shower. Do you need anything right now?"

"No—I mean, yes." I raised a hand to my throat as if that would help me be heard. "Can you help me call Carlisle? Check in?"

"I was hoping you would suggest that." I could see he was trying hard not to micromanage me. Edward sat on the edge of the bed and got Carlisle on the line, put him on speaker, and relayed my whispered answers in a normal speaking voice like some sort of one-way translator. I sipped my tea.

He felt my brow and my pulse, leaving his hand pressed over my heart for a moment as he finished up the call. His thumb drew a line on my collarbone as we listened to Carlisle say it sounded like I had a bad cold and laryngitis.

"She says thanks, Dad. And sorry for making you worry."

While Edward showered, I went online and emailed my students about how to handle their final projects in light of the snow emergency, then promptly fell asleep.

When I woke up again, hearing voices outside, the mid-day light was diffused and grey. Edward was curled up by my side, hair still damp from the shower, his socked feet just touching my legs. I answered the door for Alice and Jasper, and we all laughed at Edward's bedhead as he stood up and scowled at us groggily.

"Tuckered yourself out with your little project, did you?" Jasper shook his head. "You're making me look bad, loverboy."

"Go on, make fun, if it makes you feel better." Edward mashed his hair down as he spoke. He looked at me, adding, "She hasn't seen it yet."

I followed Alice's glance out the window and saw the clean tracks of two pairs of skis marking a line across the clearing, and—closer to the barn—a pair of initials stamped out in the snow, surrounded by a huge, crooked heart-shaped border. _E + B_. Oh, for crying out loud.

He cocked an eyebrow at me from across the room, enjoying my surprised grin.

Our afternoon with Jasper and Alice was mellow, as intended. Alice attached herself to the record player and kept us entertained with synth-heavy New Wave classics in between educating me on what to look forward to at a Cullen family Christmas. I huddled under a blanket on the couch and nodded in approval when she started drafting the holiday dinner menu. Sue and her kids were coming this year, as were Sam and Emily. It made for a nice big group.

I managed to join the others around Edward's kitchen counter for hot soup and a bit of salad. Alice kept the music going while we played a quiet game of cards. The broth and rest had helped, and my voice was coming back. Jasper began massaging the knots out of my back while Edward read and Alice fell asleep lying in front of the fire.

Jasper seemed thoughtful after I described how the tightening feeling began—almost as soon as I started coughing in the Pick-n-Save parking lot.

"Can I ask you…when did your mom first get sick?" Jasper pressed the heel of his hand along the muscles below my shoulder blade.

I thought about how to answer this. "Do you want to know when she first got sick or when she was diagnosed?"

"She waited a while, huh?"

I found myself sighing, surprised to feel a resurgence of the old annoyance I thought I'd let go of long ago. I'd noticed it the summer after my second year of grad school, when Renee and Phil came to visit me in Chicago. We'd all gone to Wrigley field to see the Cubs play—Charlie, too—and her incessant coughing made it hard to hear our little portable radio.

_That cough sounds really bad, Mom. How long has it been like that?_

Phil, shaking his head. _She refuses to see a doctor. She keeps blaming it on allergies._

_Allergies? To what? _I had frowned at her, trying to remember when she'd had anything like an allergy attack grumbled something about peanuts and Cracker Jacks and left his seat.

_It's just a tickle. Did you see all that dust coming up from the field? _She pulled a cough drop from her purse. She'd never been the type of person to carry cough drops.

But we were in the cheap seats, far above the dusty field. And it didn't get better when we moved on to a restaurant.

I turned back to Jasper and told him what I remembered. Edward looked up from his reading, his eyebrows furrowed. "To be fair, I think it came on so gradually, she just grew accustomed to the coughing. She let me make an appointment for her before she left Chicago. And…that was when we found out."

"You were used to taking care of her."

I let my gaze drop to the floor. The last thing I wanted to do was criticize her.

"When Phil came into the picture, things got better. It was never really that bad." It had been worse for Charlie, I reminded myself. Her carelessness—her inability to look out for herself—had wrecked their marriage. That had nothing to do with her emphysema.

Jasper was quiet for a moment. He had me sit up and turned his attention to the back of my neck.

"Was she a smoker?"

The question made me stiffen my posture. I twisted my head back to see Jasper's face. Edward was looking at the two of us watchfully. "What does—what sort of question is that?"

"It's…a prying question, to be perfectly honest."

"So…what's with the prying?" My voice was gravelly and rough again.

He took a deep breath and then exhaled slowly. "I think you have some unresolved feelings you haven't processed."

_What the hell_? I recoiled, feeling white hot anger boil up. It shocked me, and I sat bolt upright on the couch.

Edward spoke softly. "Jasper, that's enough." I could see in his eyes that he was absorbing Jasper's comments. _Some unresolved feelings._

Something about that incensed me further. I didn't like being the object of analysis. "Excuse me? I didn't realize you were qualified to process my feelings for me."

As soon as I heard the spiteful sound of my voice, my rage was caught up short by a sickening brick wall of regret. My hand flew to cover my mouth. I'd never spoken a rude word to Jasper. "Oh my God, Jasper—shit. I—I know you mean well."

"Hey, I was out of line." Jasper tried to shake it off, giving me an out. "Hazard of the profession. I should know better than to broach such an emotional topic during a massage."

I suddenly recalled being in my truck last night and the helpless panic that overcame me when I couldn't control my coughing. I remembered having the illusion that Renee's lungs were inside _me_. I turned away from Jasper.

I watched Edward's face as I willed myself to relax again. He looked on, concerned. I raised an eyebrow to tell him I would pick it up with him when we were alone, and he gave a nod back.

~.~.~.~.~.~.

After Jasper and Alice strapped on their skis and headed back through the woods, curving a wide arc around my heart in the snow, Edward let out a long, tired sigh. He lay down crosswise on the bed, tenting his knees and maneuvering my calves to rest on his stomach. I handed him two pillows to prop up his head.

"You haven't drooled all over these, have you? I won't catch your plague?" He rested his hands on my ankles.

"No. I think you're safe." My heart beat a little faster to see his smile reach his eyes, though there was also some weariness there.

"Guess I'll take my chances." He rubbed my feet silently for a moment. "You look nice in my pajamas."

"Real sexy, huh?"

He smirked. "Don't put words in my mouth. I said you look nice."

I laughed into a Kleenex and sipped my water, feeling restored by our first real chance to connect all day.

"Are we good? You've been preoccupied all day. Still peeved at me?"

He twisted his lips into a pained smile. "Bell…no. I'm not still peeved at you. Are you still peeved at Jasper?"

I sighed. "More like at myself. He might have a point, but…I just didn't want to open up that can of worms today. Do you think he's right?"

"He wasn't right to push you. He doesn't see how much you're already trying. It's not a process you can rush." He frowned and relaxed his face a few times, searching for a way to say something. "I was out there shoveling earlier, thinking about…how long I waited for you."

"Oh! Edward, I can't stop thinking how worried you were. It had to be two hours at least, and I can see that you were calling me—"

"No, that's not what I mean. I mean, don't get me wrong, I hope I never have a reason to worry like that again, but…" He glanced at me once, stilling his hands on my ankles, and then looked down again and cleared his throat. When he spoke, his voice was soft but clear and steady. "A part of me was dormant a long time before I met you."

"Oh." I said, grasping his hand. "Oh."

"Longer than those three years, even. You know what I mean." His Adam's apple rose and fell. He wove his fingers through mine, frowning at how cracked and chafed my skin was. "I've never had anyone in my life like you, B…knowing you…it's changed me. Six months ago, if this had happened to Alice or Esme or even fucking Emmett, I would have been losing my shit, freaking out. Installing satellite homing devices in everyone's cars."

"Six months ago? If there was a blizzard in June, a homing device would be the least of your concerns."

He snorted. "The thing is, I'm _not_ overreacting. I can't ever think about gloom and doom around you, you know? I don't know if you realize it, but your history makes you so much more present and alive with the people you love. You just make all that nonsense seem so ridiculous—all that obsessing about how I could have changed things. I like just…being with you. Every moment."

I smiled, blinking away tears. I didn't want him to lean in and kiss me, given how awful this cold was, but I pulled his hand toward me and pressed my dry, chapped lips to his knuckles. "Well, good. I promise I'm trying."

I wrinkled my nose, which I was sure was runny, and handed him the hand sanitizer. "In the meantime, protect yourself. I can't live with myself if I infect you."

He nodded and laughed, then followed my advice.

.~.~.~.~.~.~.

Over the next few days, as my cold ran its course, I kept busy with end-of-semester obligations and preparations for Christmas. Edward, too, had some time to make up at his installation site. It took some effort to locate and redirect the supplies that had been en route to him when the storm hit. I asked him whether the snow had done any damage in the open-roof pavilion where some of his work was being installed, and he shook his head.

"No. Those materials are designed for this weather. There will be some weather-sensitive elements but not until later."

We were silkscreening images onto t-shirts and hoodies as Christmas gifts; Edward was teaching me.

"Like this?" I slid my squeegee across the screen to push the ink through like he'd shown me. I had ink all over the side of my hand.

"Good. More pressure." He rested his forearms over mine and showed me just what he meant, smirking at me when the contact made me blush. Being sick was a drag when your boyfriend had scruples about taxing your respiratory system. "Keep the pressure even as you drag it. See?"

"Whoa! Why does that make the paint smell so strong?"

"What do you mean? This is a nontoxic formula. It hardly smells at all."

"Well, I just noticed it." My eyes opened wide. This meant one thing: my senses were coming back. I leaned into him, inhaling his scent for the first time in a week. Christ. I hadn't realized what I'd been missing.

His chest expanded as he took in a sharp breath. "I think that cold of yours is on its last legs. Maybe we can knock it out with some hot steam."

By the time I realized what he was proposing, he was already stripping off his paint-splattered shirt, sweeping me into his arms, and making a beeline for the shower. His mouth on my skin was frantic, his hands sure and insistent as we sank to the tile floor together beneath the hot spray of the shower. The urgency of his groans echoing around my ears made me melt, made me wish we had a full week to cancel out our weeklong hiatus.

~.~.~.~.~.~.

Christmas Eve arrived before I really had a chance to prepare for it, which had to be Edward's design. When the day came, I was finally fully over my cold, the roads were passable, and I'd been working furiously to finish grading the last of the final projects so I could enjoy my holiday break. I hadn't had a moment to work myself up about Renee.

We drove to Carlisle and Esme's in Edward's Volvo, Sue sitting in the front with him, Seth riding in the back with me. Leah had hitched a ride with Sam and Emily. When we pulled up, the house glowed from within, and I could hear so many voices I knew well by now—Jasper and Alice, Sam and Emily, Leah, Rose and Emmett, Carlisle and Esme.

I caught myself swelling with emotion at odd moments throughout the night, thinking to myself that I would have wished for such a family all my life if I had known they existed.

Esme hooked my elbow in hers, handing me a dainty glass cup of eggnog. "It's homemade."

I chuckled. "Of course it is."

"Bella, you have given our family such a gift this year. I want you to know that." She took in a deep breath, and I could feel her small, birdlike ribcage expanding next to mine. Edward, across the room, looked at the two of us sideways, squinting as if suspicious of some conspiracy between us before breaking into a smile.

"Your family is insanely happy and well-adjusted. You know that, right? It's not normal."

She nodded, a gleam in her eye. "Oh, I know it. You love it."

"I do." I downed some eggnog, which was inhumanly delicious and weirdly thirst-quenching. Esme wiggled her eyebrows and moved away to shield some vases from Seth's and Jasper's wild game of Wii baseball.

I noticed Sue beside me studying the oak tree quilt.

"Sue, do you know this quilt? I don't suppose you were part of the quilting circle that made this one?" She would have been newly married when this quilt was made.

"No, but my mother was. I remember seeing them make it. At least I think I do." She cocked her head to the side and let her eyes roam over the quilt, her eyes turning glassy. I imagined she was remembering her mother.

I looked down and saw that my cup was empty. So was hers. "Let me refill your eggnog, Sue. You're not driving, right?"

~.~.~.~.~.~.

Dinner was everything Alice had promised: tasty, absurdly lavish, filled with easygoing conversation and laughter. The Clearwaters and Uleys shared their own Christmas traditions and some touching stories about Harry's love for elaborate Christmas pranks. Edward found my knee under the table and kissed my temple, showing me he was thinking of me and my absent family.

Carlisle cleared the dinner plates and brought in the pecan pies Edward hadn't been able to stop talking about. Just as we were about to dig in, Emmett tapped his china plate and cleared his throat. He stood up as we looked on. Edward was poised with his fork hovering above his pie. I gently took the fork and set it down on the table, earning a sheepish frown from him.

"We have some news." Emmett looked at Rose, who nodded. The rest of us waited. "Well, most of you know that Rose and I have been together for about two years. And…off and on for a while before that."

Alice nodded. Edward looked down, creases forming in his forehead.

Emmett continued on. "Quite a while, actually. Rose jokes that she moved to Clearwater for an attic room in a gingerbread house, but she moved here for me."

Now Emmett had a rapt audience.

"That was almost six years ago." I could see the gears turning in Jasper's head. This was news to him.

Emmett nodded at the expressions of surprise around the room. "Yeah. I guess you noticed I kept my distance." Rose clenched his hand, silently signaling to him to go on with whatever he had to say.

"For a long time after she moved here—please hear me out—I was waiting for her to choose me over this family. I wanted her to see herself as a McCarty, not a Cullen. I…I didn't understand. And, actually, we broke up for a time when, um, when Edward was going through the worst of it. Three years back." He addressed Edward directly now. "When you needed Rose, I mean."

Edward twisted his mouth like he was searching for some way to apologize.

Emmett shook his head. "No, Edward, don't even. It was just what needed to happen. I know that now. It confused me at the time, and I resented having to share her. But in the end…it gave me a way to see what she was made of—what you all are made of, and just who this Cullen family is that she was so madly in love with."

This made Esme purse her lips and begin to laugh off the gravity of his words, but Carlisle gripped her shoulder tightly and she swallowed, her eyes growing misty.

"When we finally came together again, I knew full well what I was getting into, and I told Rose then…and I'm telling you now…if loving her means loving this whole family, I'm the luckiest man in Ohio."

Rose shook her head at Emmett's speech, smirking to keep from tearing up. "You guys, what Emmett is trying to tell you is that he knocked me up, and we're getting married."

The table erupted in happy exclamations, cups rattling against saucers as hands were grasped and backs were clapped. A chair clattered to the ground as every last one of us got to our feet. I think I saw a high five or two exchanged.

Edward was smiling, but his eyes flitted to his mother's face anxiously, and I watched him sidle across the room until he was next to her, his arm around her shoulders. Esme's face betrayed nothing but delight, even as she shed some emotional tears. I knew he was wondering if she felt melancholy about Rose's pregnancy.

His eyes sought me out, and he seemed startled to see me watching him with such fondness. A small seed of awareness took root in me then, as I found myself marveling at this unfamiliar feeling of complicated, vicarious happiness: to be taking part in a moment that was bound to change the lives of so many people in this room—and to be sharing it with Edward. I had a vision of infinite permutations of new experiences we'd share, all laid out before me like a galaxy. I laughed. Just what was in that eggnog?

Carlisle proposed a toast, finding a decanter on the mantle and splashing bourbon into the teacups of those who wanted it.

"To…" He trailed off, momentarily at a loss for the best thing to say. Then he locked eyes with his wife across the table, giving her a wink. "To family."

Rose crossed the room to Esme, who wrapped her in a tight hug. "Rose, Emmett, congratulations. It's wonderful. I'm so, so happy for you—for all of us. How…how far along are you? Are you showing?"

Esme couldn't have expected Rose to balk at her question, knowing Rose. Rose squealed with excitement, reaching for Esme's hand.

It all happened in an instant, but it was an instant that played out in freeze-frame slow motion.

Edward, smiling brightly at his mother's side, his eyes shining with excitement for the family's news.

The soft greens and browns of the backdrop framing Edward's head. _Be oak. Be generous. Love strengthens._

Emmett, tossing back his teacup of bourbon, watching Rose.

Rose, placing Esme's hand on her belly, giggling with nervous energy.

Edward's eyes wide in mock indignation as he saw Rose begin to raise her blouse, exposing her barely protruding abdomen.

Then the curious feeling of all the air being sucked out of the room, no sound at all but your own beating heart and raspy breathing, and just as quickly a whooshing return to the moment; a hundred noises suddenly louder than before, all of your senses firing to keep track of every last detail while you decide how to act, what to do next.

_This is important, _I thought, as if I could project my thoughts to him across the room. _Edward,_ _be careful._

Edward's shocked, stricken face, his white-knuckled hand clenching his teacup, groping to set it on any flat surface. Then composure again, a façade of calm as his gaze pinned me across the room, confirming that I saw what he saw, that I knew what he knew.

Yes, I'd seen it: on Rose's skin, ripe with life and promise, a blue-black missive from a parallel world, the image trading places too quickly with a reviled pseudo-memory that was slipping and mutating even now. A few inches high, in a scrolling, gothic script I'd seen before and would never forget, the letters _**EMC**_. A tattoo.


	23. Chapter 22: Paths and a Trail

Thanks to happymelt for beta-reading and to midsouthmama and faireyfan for pre-reading. Best team ever.

Playlist: Sycamore by Bill Callahan

**Chapter 22: Paths and a Trail**

It was pitch black out, the night air cold and still, by the time Edward and I made our way to bed. The treehouse in the backyard was insulated and heated, he assured me, and furnished with a bed as comfortable as the one we'd given up to Rose and Emmett for the night. We climbed the ladder together, clicked on the space heaters, spread our extra blankets out, and climbed in, entwining our limbs under the cool, comfortable sheets. He hung the battery-powered lantern above our pillows and let out a deep, exhausted sigh, rolling onto his side to face me. We were finally alone—finally able to talk.

"What a night, huh? This was hard."

He only nodded and blinked his eyes slowly. I nestled my hand in his hair and stroked his temple with my thumb.

"I'm so proud of you for keeping it together like you did."

Keeping his his eyes closed, he leaned into the pressure of my fingers. "Yeah, well…tonight was a celebration, you know? No sense spoiling it with old drama."

I sighed, my heart breaking for him yet again. He had a right to let his frustration out, even though he had done the right thing on this otherwise festive night. "Do you need to scream into a pillow? Or smash things up?"

He opened his eyes and twisted his lips up into a sad smile. "No. I'm just so tired."

I watched him reach up to snap off the light, the shadow of his arm arcing across the small room.

"Hey—look." He turned the lantern so I could see its digital clock. It was just past midnight.

"Merry Christmas, baby."

"Merry Christmas." He coiled himself closer to me in the darkness, his body heavy and warm. "Goodnight."

He fell asleep instantly. I listened to the sound of his breathing, felt his chest rise and fall beneath my hand, and recalled the past few hours, adrenaline still coursing through my veins.

.~.~.~.~.~.~.

In those chaotic moments that followed Rose and Emmett's announcement and the brief glimpse of Rose's tattooed skin, the din of glasses clinking and voices exclaiming had been drowned out by my heart beating in my ears—but only briefly.

Edward's attention was latched on to me from across the room like he was a man in need of a life preserver. I understood instantly what that tattoo was—and what it wasn't. I could only imagine what it meant to Edward…how it felt—his learning, without warning and after all this time, that what he thought was a twisted, deranged last act by a woman who had no claim on him was in fact something quite the opposite.

It was Rose all along. Never Tanya. Emmett's initials, not Edward's. The linen box of sensual photographs, the message _I give you myself_, the tattoo…the whole handcrafted package was meant as a sweet—if dramatic—Valentine from a beautiful, vibrant woman to the man she was quietly dating. Not the venomous work of a sick mind corrupted by disease. Never intended as the blow Edward took it for…the blow he had never stopped feeling these three years.

And here we were. This new knowledge hung in the air like a cartoon anvil with nowhere to land. We were surrounded by loved ones who were themselves in the midst of a life-changing moment, and their version was all joy, all wonder, all future. They knew nothing about this secret Edward had been carrying in the first place.

I could see the alternating waves of confusion and understanding pass across Edward's face, even as he struggled to mask what he was feeling. To a casual observer, he might have looked uncomfortable or possibly drunk. The unadulterated shock I had seen in his face was followed swiftly by a sort of blank wonder as he absorbed what this meant. I saw a flash of bitter pain, then disbelieving frustration, and finally a softening as he anchored himself again in the moment his family was experiencing, a moment untainted by painful epiphanies.

Suddenly, Jasper was at my elbow, jolting me out of my stupor and propelling me forward. "Everyone in the shot, we gotta capture this moment." He had his camera out.

I felt myself being jostled and arranged until I was standing in front of Edward, with Esme between Rose and me. Emmett, Carlisle, and Alice crowded in; Jasper handed the camera to Emily with some instructions before huddling beside his sister. Edward's hand groped for mine. His skin was clammy.

I whispered up to him, "Are you all right?"

He glanced at me, his eyes guarded and shell-shocked. He nodded slowly. "I don't know what to do." Emily was snapping the shutter already.

"I know. You're doing great." He was suppressing every impulse to break down right there in the middle of the dining room, because he knew doing so would reverse the happy, happy direction this night had taken.

He leaned down to whisper in my ear. "I'm not crazy, right? It was her all along?"

His voice was so innocent and baffled. I nodded, blinking tears away, afraid to meet his eye, afraid I'd be the one to break down.

"Aw, Edward, that's sweet. Keep your face right there next to Bella." Emily was now directing the shot. "Rose, can you…you know, try to make yourself look more pregnant?" Sue leaned in to advise Emily on the best angle.

Esme reached across to hike up Rose's shirt again, a devilish grin on her face. "Might as well get some pictures of this art while it's still gorgeous. I'm sorry, dear, but this whole area is about to do some stretching."

Seth's eyes widened, and I could only assume he was seeing Rose's bare midriff now. He blurted out, "Can a tattoo hurt the baby?"

"Seth, don't worry, I got this tattoo a long time ago."

Edward's breathing stuttered behind me, and he made a quiet choking noise. I squeezed his hand so hard I was afraid I might hurt him.

Emily studied the camera's screen. "Edward looks nauseous." Her head snapped up, eyebrows furrowed in concern. "Are you about to vom? What happened? Too much pecan pie again?"

"Er, yes. Excuse me," he mumbled, seeing his opening and taking it, brushing past Emmett and Jasper in a race to the bathroom. I followed a moment later, our impromptu portrait session over with for now.

I found him sitting on the side of the tub, staring blankly at the wall. His hands were in his hair, elbows framing his ears like a boxer fending off blows. "Jesus, Bella. This is all...so surreal."

"She has no idea. You know that, right? She probably sat for the portraits and thought nothing ever came of it, given…the timing." I sat down next to him and wet my hands under the bath faucet to cool the back of his neck.

"EMC. I'm such an idiot. I'm not the only one in the world with those initials. How many times have I heard Emmett complain to fucking telemarketers who call him 'Mr. Carty?'"

I'd heard it myself once, his Scotch-Irish pride giving his gentle voice a slight edge. _It's not that hard. My name has two parts: Mc and Carty_. M and C. EMC.

"But no one even knew until tonight that she was seeing him at the time. How could you have guessed it?"

He threw his head back to look up at the bright overhead light, and I watched his pupils shrink to pinpoints. Tiny rafts in two pools of green.

"I know. I just wish…I could have…" His face was tortured now, no one to hide from, no reason to moderate his reactions. He looked down again, folding his arms around his middle and hunching over. "I could have found this out…years ago. If only I had shown people that box, it would have all come out. Maybe."

I knew without asking that he'd kept the box hidden away to protect everyone…his family, himself, even Tanya. None of the photographs in that box were particularly graphic, from what I could recall, but they were clearly not the type of thing Edward would have trotted out for people to gawk at—not even out of spite, which I was beginning to see had no place in his vocabulary of emotions.

"You can't think like that, sweetie. You just did the only thing your heart would let you do at the time. You tucked it away and tried to forget it."

He shook his head. "I did try to forget. I looked at the pictures once and never again. They turned my stomach."

I nodded. Even when he'd shown the box to me that night in his office, he had avoided really looking at it.

He raised his head and turned to look at me. "You realize what that box was about, don't you? The tattoo, the photographs of her body, the '_I give you myself'_ business. She was choosing him. Before I had my meltdown and she got sidetracked—she was about to give in to his ultimatum."

I thought back to Emmett's regretful confession earlier in the night: _I was waiting for her to choose me over this family._ I had wondered when Edward would put that together.

"I wouldn't say that she got sidetracked. You're virtually her brother, and she loves you. They all do. They did what a family does; they supported you when you needed them." I watched his face. He looked calm. This next part was tricky, so I took a deep breath.

"And, Edward, you heard Emmett say it himself…it was only after seeing them rally around you that he realized he wanted to be a part of this family instead of trying to keep Rose all to himself. Without that catalyst...she might be living a very different sort of life now, alone with Emmett. Think how much smaller this amazing improvised family of yours would be."

He clenched and unclenched his jaw, breathing roughly through his nose. He knew how much Rosalie had come to love and depend on Esme and Carlisle as her stand-in parents. Emmett, too—his heartfelt speech earlier tonight was genuine.

And then, unexpectedly, Edward's demeanor changed. A fresh realization swept over his face—this one a happy thought. "I'm going to be an uncle."

I put my two hands on his beautiful, strong, resilient face and planted a kiss on his lips. "You're going to be a fantastic uncle." This big family business wasn't easy—the constant compromising of one need in favor of another, bigger one. He was teaching me so much every day.

"Will you be all right if we go back out there?"

He took a deep breath and stood up, helping me to my feet. "I'll be all right."

~.~.~.~.~.~

When I awoke in the cool morning light, Edward was peacefully asleep, his skin peachy and refreshed and the lines of exhaustion gone from his face. I decided to wake him up. I rummaged in my satchel for a moment for something I'd hidden in there and then hovered over him, straddling his waist while I covered his eyes with my hand.

"Wake up."

"Hmmrgh." He squirmed under me, and I could feel his eyelashes batting against my palm.

"Good morning. Are you awake?"

"Uhhh, yes, but is it morning? It's so dark. I can't see a thing." He was smiling and playing along with me, his voice gravelly.

"Hold still. I have a Christmas surprise for you."

"Hmm. A surprise? It's not a chunk of coal, is it? I've been so good, I promise."

I cracked up. "No. It's something you didn't get any of last night."

"I can think of a lot of things I didn't get any of last night." He reached a hand up to grope for my arm, stroking my skin. "Whatever you have in mind, I'm ready. Bring it on."

I brushed my thumb over his lips. "Open."

He laughed softly in surprise. "Uh-oh."

I took a moment to gawk at the sight of his open mouth. Jesus, he was beautiful. I swallowed. "No backpedaling now."

"Wouldn't dream of it."

I could feel him growing bigger and hard beneath me. My mind raced and short-circuited at the same time. I bit my lip. I only had part one of this plan worked out in my head.

When his smiling mouth was still again, open and waiting, I brought my fingers down, filling his mouth with what I hoped was a manageable, bite-sized chunk of pecan pie.

"Uunghh." The vibrations that coursed through my body when he groaned made me flush hot. I could feel it in his teeth as they closed gently on my fingers; I could feel it rumbling through his chest below me. His face looked ecstatic. His lips closed over my fingertips as he sucked the sticky substance off. "Oh, God. Oh, fuck. Uhhmm."

He smiled and laughed below me, his ribcage shaking. "I never noticed how much you taste like pecan pie."

"It _is _pecan pie, you dork." I giggled and felt his hands come to rest on my hips, his thumbs tracing the lines of my hip bones beneath the waistband of my long johns.

"Oh, okay. But even so, maybe I need a comparison taste test, just to be sure." In a whisper he added, "Kiss me."

Jesus. I held his next bite between my teeth and fed it to him that way, gasping and grinding against him when he moaned into my mouth. He licked the sweet crumbs of pastry from my lips. He moved his mouth around my face blindly, weaving his hands into my hair and kneading my scalp as his tongue traced the places that made me melt.

"Fuck, I love you. More than pie. Let me see you."

I took my hand away from his eyes and raised my face a few inches so we could see one another. "You know what they say. You can have your pie and eat it, too."

He sat up slightly, his abdomen curling beneath me, to kiss away a crumb. "Is that so? I always thought that was just for cake." I liked the way his gaze roamed around my face while he spoke.

"Cake you _can't _have and eat, too. Pie you _can_." I closed my eyes, feeling his hands working their way inside my shirt. He skimmed his fingertips along my spine and around my ribcage to my breasts. I opened my eyes again and lifted my shirt off over my head.

He smoothed his hands over my skin, splaying his fingers out and tracing the hollow at the base of my throat. He looked at me steadily the whole time, his face relaxed and unguarded. He sighed. "I want you."

He said it in a matter-of-fact way, like he was giving me the weather report. _It's snowing. I want you._ "So much. All the time."

He twisted his head to locate my stash of pie and reached down to scoop up a dab of the caramelized filling on his fingers. As nonchalant as can be, he glazed my nipples with it, and then sat up and rolled me onto my back to nibble and lick at me, trading off between the cool, firm pressure of his teeth and the velvety sandpaper of his tongue.

"I'm sorry, but you taste exactly like pecan pie." He hummed into my skin when he felt me laughing beneath him.

He stripped the rest of our clothes off and entered me quietly, calm and easy and familiar. He had a way of escalating the warm, rich buzz in my body to a blissful frenzy ever so gradually, surprising me with heightened pleasure and making me yearn for more all at the same time. The more slowly he moved, the more distinctly I felt every sensation, until something like a tender, feather-light brush of his lips at my hairline made me dig my fingertips into his shoulder blades and press my teeth into his collarbone.

"Mmff. Oh, God. Remind me to fuck you slowly at least, like, once a week for the rest of my life, okay?" He wove our fingers together and pressed his forehead to mine, quivering with control. "At least. Maybe twice."

That was the edge for me this time. Christ. I drew in a long, slow breath, filling my lungs for the roller coaster dive into a bone-shaking orgasm, and he saw it. "Fuck. Yes."

He pressed the back of my hand to his mouth, never breaking eye contact. His shuddering breaths turned more ragged when I started to come, and the beginning of his orgasm dovetailed with the end of mine, drawing out the waves of euphoria like sweet, stretched sugar candy.

We lay there for a while talking and luxuriating in the remaining moments we had alone together, noticing the aroma of pancakes wafting up from the house and placing bets on when the rooster would start crowing. And then it was time to strip the sheets off the bed, get dressed, and tiptoe inside for quick showers before the Christmas morning rituals got underway.

.~.~.~.~.~.~.

As we gathered beside the Christmas tree, I was happy to see Edward relax in to celebrating with Emmett and Rose, asking them questions about their plans, even putting his hand on her belly when she invited him to. At fifteen weeks, she was barely showing.

Esme was occasionally teary-eyed, overcome with emotion about the prospect of a newborn in the house—something she'd never experienced herself. Carlisle seemed contented as he passed gifts back and forth, sending significant glances to his wife from time to time. Jasper snapped pictures, and Alice oohed and aahed over the various things people had made.

Edward had explained that the emphasis on handmade gifts wasn't a hard and fast rule but a tradition—and, in this family, one that sometimes led to extravagantly ornate projects. I had a suspicion that Edward's gift to Esme might be one of those, because he told her she'd see it when his installation opened in January.

I bit the inside of my cheek as Edward opened the gift I'd made him. He peeled the paper away and flipped through the album pages quietly for a few moments, totally engrossed.

I started to explain myself, "They're just snapshots. I don't have any skill—" but he shushed me.

"This is wonderful. Thank you." He smiled at me. "And you started this before you knew anything about that tree, it looks like."

I had been taking a picture of the dandelion oak tree almost every day, each time I was in my office, and I had assembled almost a hundred prints into an album for him. Seen all together, the snapshots showed the subtle seasonal changes since August.

"Well…I've admired that tree since I made my first campus visit here last winter." I decided to tell him the rest—that I'd seen him that day—in private.

"Let's keep it going, okay?" He took my hand in his. He seemed genuinely pleased.

"Oh!" Esme sat bolt upright. "Rose, Emmett, we have something extra for you." She looked pointedly at Carlisle, who retrieved a package from the kitchen. Jasper and Alice were trying to contain their smiles, and Edward put a hand on my knee.

"This is from all of us."

Rose and Emmett unwrapped a worn leather bundle containing several tools that looked like chisels. They looked up, their faces bewildered. "But…what is this?"

"It's our carving set. For the tree."

There was a bit of a kerfuffle as Emmett knocked through a pile of empty boxes to get to Esme, sweeping her into a hug. Honestly. This family.

"Well, I guess we're not such an unpredictable bunch, after all." Edward looked slightly chagrined. "Bella, this is from me."

I felt a strange sense of alarm when it occurred to me that he might want me to carve my initials into the tree, too. Wasn't it too soon for that? When I saw the tiny package, though, I relaxed.

It was a delicate locket cast in silver, ornately detailed. The outside depicted a familiar-looking round oak tree, a pretty heart nestled in its branches on the half to the left of the hinge. The inside revealed a set of lungs—how closely they resembled trees!—and an anatomic heart, also on the left-hand side. I read the inscription: _To Bella, who is everything real_.

I was overwhelmed by the beauty of it—and how perfect it felt. It spoke to the beauty he saw in unvarnished truths and his acceptance of everything about me.

"Where did you find this? And I thought it had to be homemade?"

"Come on, give me some credit. This is what I do, remember?" Of course. It was one of a kind, carved and cast by hand. He reached out to pull me toward him.

There was nothing to do, in front of all these people, but lean in and kiss him, whispering _thank you_. I was emotionally spent, and it wasn't even noon.

.~.~.~.~.~.~.

Twenty hours later, I was sitting with Edward in his faculty office.

The white linen box was on his desk, in plain view. It looked so much less ominous than I remembered, the soft curlicues of the dark lettering more delicate and gentle.

"It looks so different to me now."

He nodded. "Me, too."

"What do you want to do with it?"

"Give it to Rose, probably. At least I'll be able to tell her I barely glanced at the pictures. Awkward." He grimaced and placed the box back on its high shelf.

"I guess, up close, it's hard to tell what you're looking at. I mean, whom."

He shook his head slowly, frowning. "With Tanya I was…not paying close attention."

He leaned down to pull his sketchbook from his bag and handed it over to me. I flipped through it and was startled to see myself in it—my kneecap, the line of scar bordering my breast, the arch of my foot, my freckled right shoulder blade.

"Did you do this while I was sleeping?"

"Those are from memory. It was bothering me, the idea that I might have such poor recall, so…I tested myself. Is it creepy?"

"No..." I liked it, if I was being honest, "knowing your intention, it's kind of sweet."

He slouched back in his chair and rested his hands on his stomach. From time to time he glanced at his office phone. I remembered the long, static-filled voicemail he'd had me listen to. "What do you think she meant? '_Look at the photographs, you'll understand_.' Since I was wrong to think she meant this box…"

I shook my head. I hadn't given it a second thought since that night in his office.

"Or maybe she did mean this box, but not in the way I thought," he mused. "Like, maybe she was in love with Emmett? Or with Rose? Jealous or something?"

I scrunched my face up. That sounded far-fetched.

"Yeah, that's not it. Even with everything I thought she was capable of, she was never a jealous person."

"You said those other photos weren't significant—the shots on her camera from that night."

He located the photographs and spread them out on his desk. They were a haphazard mess: badly framed, out of focus, overexposed, underexposed. A few looked like they had water on the lens. In light of what we'd learned about her cancer, and the increasing evidence that she wasn't malicious after all, a new hypothesis began to form in my mind. And as soon as it formed in my mind, it began to break my heart.

We both looked up at the same time. His breath caught, and I was certain he was thinking what I was thinking.

He was the first to say it out loud.

"She was going blind."

.~.~.~.~.~.~.

We called Jacob together and put him on speaker. He was quickly becoming our non-Carlisle medical consult. He confirmed that a fast-growing glioblastoma multiforme—he called it "GBM"— could compromise the optical nerve, meaning that perfectly healthy eyes would send information that would be processed in a confusing way. It would manifest as double vision, for instance, or trouble with depth perception.

"Usually, only one side of the brain is affected at first. If she was losing part of her visual field, it would account for the clumsiness you've described. The brain finds ways to compensate, though. She would have been able to function in everything but driving and certain highly detailed tasks." Tasks like photography—her main purpose in life. Edward and I looked at one another.

"Did she stop driving?" I asked Edward.

"She claimed she didn't like to drive in winter. She said other drivers made her nervous compared with winter drivers in Alaska."

Jacob's voice carried on over the phone line, tinny and flat. "If you happened to notice that she kept her head turned more to one side, that's another common indication. As human animals, we're hypersensitive to any interference with our peripheral vision, so turning the head to complete the visual field is instinctive. Listen, Bella, Edward…there's no denying the fact that GBM is a terrible disease. I hope you find the answers you're looking for."

Edward was pensive after we hung up the phone.

"You really want to figure this out, don't you?"

"I feel like it's the least she deserves. I'd love to be able to put it to rest, of course." He looked me in the eye, scrubbing his scruffy jaw with one hand. "I just don't see how we can be sure."

Something in Jacob's explanation had given me an idea. "I don't want to get your hopes up, but there's a Dear Government Documents letter that might be relevant. I disregarded it because it seemed to be the handwriting of an elderly person, but I suppose, given the circumstances, it could have been hers."

"And you're willing to let me see it?"

I stood, stretching my hands out to pull him to his feet. "I'm offering."

We walked across campus to the library, both of us deep in thought. I let myself dwell on the random pattern of the sidewalks crisscrossing the snowy clearing. At least, the pattern appeared to be random; on an old campus like this, students would have literally beaten a path between one location and the next, and the next, and the next. The relatively recent innovation of poured concrete sidewalks gave those paths some permanence.

Trust was built in much the same way, it occurred to me. It developed gradually, and after a point you only noticed it if something was wrong with it. A crack in the pavement, for instance. A low hanging branch. I smiled to myself as Edward and I crossed the street between the wide clearing and the library. My old hesitancy about divulging what was in these letters was long gone. I knew my own judgment about it was good, and the prospect of using my special access to help Edward—to help anyone—was gratifying.

I let us into the archive and located the letter we already knew was from Tanya along with the letter I had originally ruled out. We sat on one of the low couches in the reading room, and I laid the two documents side by side. There was absolutely no similarity to be found in the handwriting. The more recent letter, the one from two weeks before Tanya died, was written in shaky block letters, each letter traced over two times with an unsure hand.

The content, though, and the date—both of those seemed relevant. The letter inquired about whether organ donation was possible if a person died outside of a health care setting, and it specifically mentioned eye donation. At the time, I had imagined a person dying peacefully in his or her bed at home, surrounded by family.

"This one caught my attention because it had to do with organ donation. And eyes are one of the few things a cancer patient is eligible to donate. Jacob said any vision problems would have stemmed from the optic nerve deep in her brain, even if her eyes were healthy…"

Edward blew out a frustrated breath. His eyes flitted back and forth between my face and the letter. "You know…she did donate her body to science. There was a stipulation that it had to be in another state. That in itself isn't so strange, but there was so much secrecy around how it was handled…even Carlisle agreed that it was unusual. I thought…"

He stopped short, and I watched his Adam's apple bob up and down as he swallowed. He picked at the tiny threads of his jeans that were beginning to fray at his kneecap. When he spoke again, his voice was barely louder than a whisper. "I thought it was to hide something important from me. Like…well, we'd only been broken up for three months when she died, so there was a possibility…if she were…" His mouth moved like he was trying to push out a word, and he wouldn't meet my eye.

I gasped, my mind filling in the blank for him. I grasped his hand, warming his cool fingertips between my palms. "Oh, Edward. Jesus. Don't think that. Please tell me you didn't think that." He rolled his head back to look up at the ceiling.

I could see now that the idea had been gnawing at him this whole time. His avoidance of sex after Tanya's death…his mindfulness about risk that night in the bed of my truck, before I reminded him I was on the pill.

He raised his head up again and turned to look at me. "I know it's not rational. I just thought you should know that this is the way my mind works."

It was as if, by keeping her secrets, Tanya had made herself into a vessel for every fear and insecurity he had. It made me even more determined to find an answer for him.

I picked up the shaky-penmanship letter. "Do you think we could find a sample of her handwriting from around the same time…or just a little bit earlier?"

He contemplated this for a moment. "Her application to the Fund. That would have been late December. About four weeks…before. And it had a form she would have handwritten." His eyes darkened as a new realization occurred to him. "Shit. That show. No wonder she was so single-minded. I mean, if she knew those were the last good photographs she would ever take in her life?"

I shook my head, recalling the summery self-portrait I'd seen. The fine wrinkles around her shining eyes, the glint of sun off of the water. "Do you still have it? The application?"

"Of course. We have everything. It's in Jenks's office."

Jay Jenks was a professor in the Politics department and a practicing estate lawyer. He managed the paperwork for the Brandon-Masen Fund. I stood and filed away the documents, preparing to move on to the next stop in this uncanny scavenger hunt. It occurred to me that, while I wouldn't have wished for this particular mission, it felt good to be working together with Edward as a team.

On the path between the library and the Social Sciences building, Edward touched my wrist with his fingertips. "Wait—Rose's portraits. That would have been in January, I imagine. How could Tanya have taken those?"

I raised my eyebrows. "I guess we talk to Rose sooner rather than later."

"She's back at the Art building in the metal shop. Let's go."

.~.~.~.~.~.~.

Within an hour, we had found Rose and convinced her to join us in Edward's office. She leaned against his desk—insisting she preferred to stand—and looked at us quizzically.

"What's going on? Edward, I have your sheet metal die cuts to finish."

Edward, sitting with his forearms resting on his knees, launched right in. "Rose, your tattoo…when did you get it?"

She cocked her head to the side and frowned. "About three years ago. Almost exactly. Are you looking for a referral? Which one of you is getting inked?"

"No, that's not it…um…" Edward raked his hand through his hair.

I butted in. "Rose, after you got that tattoo, did you sit for some portraits… right before Valentine's Day?"

Her eyes widened, first in surprise, then in horror. She looked back and forth between me and Edward, her face cycling through various emotions as she processed this. "Oh, motherfuck. Emmett's present. But I thought—"

"I found the finished package on Tanya's desk. That week." Edward winced. "I thought it was from her…and meant for me."

Rose's face turned pale. She lifted the peppermint tea I had made for her, only to set it back down again. "Oh, my God. It says EMC all over it, doesn't it? Of course you would have thought that."

"Are you all right?" Edward addressed Rose but glanced at me to see if I was concerned. I shrugged. Pregnant women were not my strong suit. "Ah, fuck, Rose, I'm sorry. I didn't look! I mean, I barely looked."

She turned to Edward with a pitying expression. "I'm fine. I'm mortified, but not because you saw my ankles. Edward, this whole time, you've been thinking Tanya had a tattoo of your initials? That she—oh, shit. That she sent you a message about giving herself to you or something? I don't even remember what it was. That's fucking morbid. No wonder you went all Howard Hughes on us."

"I wouldn't go that far. Hughes was a nut." Edward's face crinkled into a smirk. "Garbo, maybe."

Rose chuckled, shaking her head.

Edward reached up and retrieved the box, handing it to Rose. "It's yours."

She frowned, tracing her finger over the initials on the lid. "You poor thing. So this is why you were acting so strangely on Christmas Eve. Because you recognized the tattoo. And you didn't say a word." She regarded him with a mystified look, until tears appeared in her eyes. "You wanted us to have our night, didn't you?"

Edward looked away. "Listen, I wouldn't be bringing it up at all, except I need to know…we need to know…when did she actually take these?"

Rose shook her head. "She didn't—I mean, I took them myself. She gave me pointers, and she had her contact produce the prints and the packaging for me. That's all. Why do you ask?" She looked at Edward, who was staring at me, jiggling his leg anxiously. He had heard all he needed to hear.

Edward took a deep breath and nodded at Rose as he stood. "We think she was losing her ability to take photographs, and that was among the reasons why she…did what she did. Listen, I'm done keeping secrets from you—all of you. We've found some things out, and we want to tell the family…but we just need to follow up on one more thing first. Can you be patient?"

"Of course. Whatever you need. Edward…thank you for coming to me." She gave him a hug and a kiss on the cheek before dashing back to the metal shop.

There was one thing left to do, and that was to look at the December handwriting sample. We slogged back across campus to Jay Jenks's office in the old greystone Social Sciences building.

.~.~.~.~.~.~.

Edward sat at a wooden table in the Social Sciences lounge with a manila folder before him, tapping his fingers lightly. I stood off to the side, too keyed up to sit still. The room was strangely large for a faculty lounge, with high ceilings and massive windows. I realized, apropos of nothing, that this room had once been the dining hall of a dorm. An old-fashioned clock hung above a disused dumbwaiter. I could hear it tick.

Edward cracked his knuckles and wiped his face with his hands. He flipped the folder open and shut it after a split second, the palm of his hand pressing the file flat. Had he changed his mind?

"Edward?"

His eyes were screwed shut. Then I heard him inhale sharply. A reflex. Then nothing. He pushed his chair away from the table, and his elbows came to rest on his knees, his head on his hands. He was silent and still for a long time. Then I saw it. Tears were dripping onto the cornflower blue rug. Lots of them. Without really deciding to, I found myself slipping onto his lap, cradling his face in my hands.

He wrapped his long arms around me more tightly than he ever had. I could feel his heart hammering in his ribcage. When he spoke, his voice was oddly clear, full of relief and certainty, even as the tears continued to spill out of his eyes.

"It's the strangest thing. I didn't know it would feel like this. She never saw me at all. It's her handwriting, B. She never saw me that night. I know it. And she didn't mean for me to see it. She just wanted to die on her own terms and be found, and I showed up early. Of all the shitty things…she was fucking going blind, and no one knew it. She was so fucking young. God, this is so messed up, but it feels so good to breathe now. I can really breathe."

His words were a flood of pent up emotions and new truths. I sighed. This was real grieving, at long last—not the complicated tangle of undeserved blame and bewilderment he'd lived with for so long. I rubbed his back and whispered soothing noises in his ear.

We sat that way for a long time, a human statue in the sparsely furnished room. I felt my cotton shirt start to soak through from his noiseless tears. I could almost feel the weight of too much doubt and guilt releasing into the atmosphere, unbending his shoulders as he let go, exhaling deeply, releasing the last of the burden he'd been holding for far too long.

.~.~.~.~.~.~.

Nah, this ain't the end! We've got a few more chapters to go in this story. Thanks for hanging in there, especially those who are reading this as a work in progress!


	24. Chapter 23: Balances

**Playlist:** Spread your Love by Black Rebel Motorcycle Club (linked on my profile)

Many thanks to my fabulous and hard-working beta (**happymelt!**) and prereaders (**faireyfan!** and **midsouthmama!**). I have a thousand more things to say about them but I know they'd want me to just get on with it and post already! And thank **you!** for reading.

~.~.~.~.~.~

**Chapter 23: Balances **

I woke up to cool light streaming in my windows and the aroma of breakfast and coffee wafting up the stairs. Edward was whistling. I threw on the tee shirt he'd been wearing last night and made my way down to the kitchen, finding him in grey cargo pants and a new wool sweater from Esme, rumpled but clean, plating up blackberry corncakes.

He kissed me good morning and wiped the sleep out of my eye, smiling crookedly. I stirred milk into my coffee and joined him at the table to eat. He was ravenous, making quick work of his stack and going back for seconds. We talked about plans for the week and what to tell the family at tonight's Sunday dinner. I rose to refill our coffee cups and turned back again to clear the dirty plates.

He wrapped an arm around my waist and took the plates from me, setting them down. "Hold on a sec. I want us to talk about last night."

He'd fallen asleep immediately after coming back to my place from campus; I'd barely been able to steer his lurching body up the stairs. But then he'd woken me up twice in the night, needy and eager. I knew without him saying so that it was the second of those he wanted to talk about.

The first time, he was purposeful and spirited, teasing me, plying me, and he'd pinned my legs to my chest while I hooked my calves over his shoulders. I could feel the waves of relief and surprise still passing through him and some nervous energy with nowhere else to go. A light was in his eyes that I hadn't seen before.

The second time, I felt Edward's hands and mouth moving hot and insistently over my skin as in a dream. But it wasn't a dream. _Are you awake? Is this all right? You said my name. I thought you were awake. Tell me you want to sleep; I'll let you sleep_. And just as I had a few hours earlier, I pressed closer to him, kicking blankets aside and groping for the cool and warm places on his body through my half-awake fog. His breath in my ear tickled like it had before, but this time, his voice and his words stirred something different in me. There was something apologetic in his tone, something reluctant, and it made me agitated.

I whispered back in the dark, shaking my head. "Don't hide this. Don't hold back. Never." I pressed my open mouth into his shoulder and rocked my pelvis under his strong wrist.

He jostled me and heaved pillows out of the way and let himself handle me roughly and carefully, his need taking turns with his self-control. It drove me crazy. He took his cues from my breath, my noises. When I slid my hand between his thighs, around him, tugging and palming his balls, he flipped me over, yanking my hips back and sinking into me with that defenseless, eager moan of his. The more I felt his control unleash itself, his breath stuttering and his hips jerking, the more I staggered and suspended the rhythm he sought desperately to find, even as I urged him onward with my raspy voice. It made him more frantic, wilder, a mess of grasping and groaning.

"How—Beh...Bell. Ungh. Oh, God."

It felt like I was diving for a pearl of primal lust in him, one he'd kept sealed up for too long. My body was operating on instinct, still surfacing, and I could feel the remnants of a dream governing me. _Don't stop, Edward. Take everything. Never stop. _I only thought it to myself, but he responded like I'd spoken out loud. Had I said it in my sleep?

"Uhff, don't even, I'll never. Fuck, please. Please." He gasped and tightened his arms around me, pressing and guiding me with hands that were strong but still too tentative, panting a mantra. "I want—I want—"

"Show me. You won't hurt me."

Finally his hips jerked and rolled, his hard hands gripping me with a tighter purchase, taking over like I wanted him to. And then I did give in, satisfied I was being fucked relentlessly at last and not treated like a breakable doll. He thrust and ground into me until I came, and then until I came again, and finally I was a quivering mass on the bed, panting and sinking into the sweaty sheets. He collapsed on top of me, rolling to the side and pulling me with him, his voice shaking. "Holy fuck, baby."

This morning, with Edward holding my hips as I stood between his knees, I could see curiosity in his face, but not a trace of uncertainty. His hands were warm on my skin, roaming across my ass and beneath my shirt.

"B, what were you feeling last night? What was that about?"

In the late morning light, rested and relaxed, his eyes were a beautiful mess of greens and grey-copper flecks. I sighed. "I felt like you were horny as hell and afraid of disturbing me. What did you have to be afraid of? Did you think I wouldn't say no to you if I really wanted to sleep?"

He cocked his head to the side. "What—when I was pawing you for sex? You wanted me to be selfish?"

I pursed my lips. "You should want what you want. At least…don't hide it. You never have. It's one of my favorite things about you. And in the end, I wouldn't say it was totally one-sided."

He let his eyes flutter closed when he felt my hands at his hairline, smoothing his silky hair back, massaging his scalp. "But even if it had been…I think it's okay to let yourself be selfish once in a while. When's the last time you gave in to a selfish impulse?"

He sat up straight, opening his eyes, raising his eyebrows. He knew exactly what I was suggesting. "Is that what you think? I'm absolved of guilt now, and I can go back to being selfish?"

He pointed to the back stairway without turning his head to look. "That, Bella. That was the most selfish thing I've done in ages. Kissing you that night, when I knew I couldn't—or when I didn't know I _could_—really be with you…that was a fucking selfish impulse."

"I think it was just a regular impulse. Not every kiss has to turn into a relationship."

He looked at me sideways as if he could see straight through my reasoning. I remembered the way he had kissed me—of course I remembered. There were all sorts of promises in that kiss.

He frowned and brought both hands back to my waist, drawing me closer to him. "I still can't believe things turned out right with you. I never want things to go back to how they were before. How I was before. But that's not even what I meant to ask you. Believe it or not, I have no issue with you getting me to lose it like that last night. Fuck—I liked it. And you were right. I needed…coaxing." He ran his hand up inside the back of my shirt and rested his head on my chest, nosing the locket that hung around my neck. "But I meant…what you said to me. Right before. Do you remember?"

I shook my head, realizing as I did it that he couldn't see me. "Um, no, what was it? Was I talking in my sleep?"

He drew in a shaky breath. "You said my name, and you said… 'Don't stop needing me. Please don't stop needing me.' Why would you think that?" He raised his head up to look at me.

It was beside the point that I didn't remember saying it. I could remember feeling it; I still felt it, even now.

"I don't know." But I did know. I sighed. I couldn't very well hide this after insisting Edward not hide his impulses from me. "Because…I feel like I had a purpose in your life that had to do with those letters, and now…now I don't really know what more..."

"What more you can give to me? Oh, baby. Fucking hell." He held me closer, breathing in the air around my collarbone. "Here's the thing: Your purpose in my life has everything to do with everything. Those letters seem major now, but in the grand scheme of things they're just a blip. The way you make me feel—I will never stop needing it. You. This."

It helped more than I knew I wanted it to. I squeezed his shoulder.

"You'll see, baby. This whole revelation is a shock to you just like it is to me, and a lot of things feel mixed up, I'm sure." He pulled his phone from a pocket. "I want us to cancel for dinner tonight. Do you mind? Just you and me all day, okay?"

I nodded and watched him make the call.

~.~.~.~.~.~

Edward was improbably thrilled to find out I had nothing but mundane chores on my agenda for the day. After being sick, then the frenzied ramp-up to Christmas, and then yesterday's fact-finding adventure, I was behind on laundry and grocery shopping.

"Perfect. That's perfect. Anything, I don't care."

Theoretically, two of us doing my chores should have meant we finished faster, but it seemed to drag the tasks out—while making them more fun. He took a long time changing a load of laundry for me while I folded dry clothes, and when I walked into the laundry room to investigate, I saw he had hung up several sets of clean, wet bras and underwear to dry on a rail.

"These can go in the dryer, you know. Some of them."

"No, they can't." He smirked. "The heat makes the fibers brittle, and brittle means scratchy or itchy…and it makes them fall apart faster."

He tilted his head up, eyes searching. "This one…you were wearing that time in the therapy pool. I'd know it anywhere. We've travelled to Minneapolis and back together. Hello, old friend." He was really hamming it up now, but it was working.

"This one squashes you a little bit. It looks uncomfortable." He opened the dryer door and threw it in. "There. Maybe this is its last ride. Godspeed."

"And this one makes your boobs look especially awesome. In fact…" He grabbed a pencil and a scrap of paper from the clutter on top of the dryer and scribbled down some notes. He was writing down the size and brand.

"Um, you'll also need to know the style."

"The style?" He stared at me expectantly. I couldn't help but laugh at his earnestness.

"Here. See?"

"Okay." He wrote that down, too. "And while we're at it, where's that light blue one? That one's also quite good."

He followed me to my room like some sort of lingerie detective. Once he was done taking an inventory of my underwear, he moved on to the other drawer, which was filled with socks and tights. "Where are all your clothes?"

"The closet." I laughed. "Be serious—what are we doing? We still need to go to the store and borrow a movie from Sue's stash before she closes down."

"But you need a warmer outfit first."

I glanced down at my tee shirt—well, his tee shirt—and running shorts. "Of course! This isn't even an outfit."

"I'll take care of it. You get in the shower." I walked away shaking my head, consoling myself with the thought that Clearwater was virtually deserted at this time of year. He was having fun.

The walk into downtown was invigorating. I was still getting used to how vacant and silent the place was with most of the Newcoven students gone. I'd said yes to the v-neck blue sweater Edward had laid out for me, but no to the tights and skirt, choosing jeans instead. And, of course, yes to my light blue and apparently second-best bra. I liked that he wanted me in a v-neck so my locket would be visible—_and if anyone asks where you got it, you can tell them I don't take commissions._

We came home with a few small bags of necessities, plus the makings of a pie, which Edward claimed _couldn't be that hard_. It was, in fact, harder than it looked but more fun than I would have guessed. We never even got to that _Love Spelled Backwards_ movie Sue had loaned us, which was probably for the best.

~.~.~.~.~.~

By Tuesday, when we were expected next door for our rescheduled family dinner, I felt better about this new normal with Edward. It wasn't that different from the old normal; we knew things we didn't know before, was all—and Edward had perhaps one fewer crease in his forehead.

I opened the oven door and pulled out our second attempt at a homemade pie. Edward was already next door, having gone over early to use some of Alice's equipment, he said. When I let myself in, his voice rang out from the back of the kitchen. "I'm in the greenhouse."

I dropped my coat, set the pie down, and made my way toward his voice, picking up some fresh bread from the basket on the counter. It was still warm. I stood watching Edward from the doorway for a moment, admiring the way the room full of backlit green plants made his eyes seem to glow brighter.

"Handsome."

He raised his head, blinking at me, appraising me from head to toe the way he sometimes did. He scrunched a shoulder up to wipe sweat from his jaw, his soil-covered hands held away from his body. "Pretty."

"You look busy."

"Wanna help? This isn't work. It's for…" He looked back and forth between me and the tray of dirt. "Us."

"Really? What is it?" I made a start for his work bench, but he held up a hand to stop me in my tracks.

"I'm prepping some plants and stuff for the garden." He gestured with his head toward my shoes. "You might want to leave those at the door."

Right. These were fairly new shoes, and the tile floor was sprinkled with dirt and wet in patches. Once I was barefoot, my pant legs rolled up, he waved me in.

"Give me a bite?" He held his mouth open like a baby bird, and I fed him a chunk of bread. "Mmhf. Sourdough. Favorite."

I sat on the wide metal table next to the utility sink with my feet swinging. I finished my bread and watched Edward tamp down soil around a row of sprouts and reposition the tray under some lights. I told him what I knew about the history of greenhouses, and he seemed particularly interested in the use of thin sheets of mica for heat retention in the days before glass was invented. He even wrote it down. He asked for my ideas on vegetables for the garden we would plant beside the barn and showed me some seeds germinating in Petri dishes.

He cut the plastic wrapping from around the roots of a small tree sapling and then stood laughing for a moment with the tree in his hands, dirt crumbling off of it. "Oh, shit. Look at me showing off, not paying attention. I was supposed to have the planter ready before I did that." He handed the dirty bundle to me. "Hold this?"

He dragged a round planter over next to the sink and started filling it with the hose. There was a type of platform at the bottom of the planter, which he explained had something to do with self-watering. Then the platform started rising up, floating on top of the water. He shut off the flow, swearing and laughing.

"Fuck, I did that wrong, too. I was supposed to put the soil in before the water so it weighs this thing down." It was a rare treat to see him exasperated.

"Should I put this tree in there to weigh it down?"

"Well, it will tip all over the place, and we want to plant it with the roots closer to the surface." He shook his head, his hand on his hip. He reached down into the water experimentally. "No, I need both hands to pour the soil."

He looked at me. My hands were full, but his gaze lingered on my bare feet. "Will you stand on it? Just keep it straight and flat until I put the soil in?"

What the hell. Why not? "This better not be an indication of your planning abilities, Cullen, because I worry about this installation of yours."

He snorted, shaking his head. I slid off the table, and he used his elbow and one relatively clean thumb to shove my pant leg up farther and guided me into the planter. The water came up to my ankle, but at least I was holding down the platform.

"One foot? Both?"

"One should do it."

I shook my head at Edward as he retrieved a plastic bin of dark, loose potting soil. Without further ado, he was dumping the bin of moist soil all around my bare foot and I was squealing.

"This is what's called seed starting mix. It's as sanitary as dirt can get and very nutritious." He sidled closer to me and bent to kiss me softly on the lips. "You look so nice planted here. My delicate flower."

He couldn't even say it with a straight face. I nipped at his smiling lips, snickering. "Will you remember to water me? And fertilize me daily?"

"Um, daily would probably kill you. Fertilizer is strong stuff. At least, mine is." The smile on his face turned into an awkward grimace. He cleared his throat. "I mean, unless…wait, what?"

"Oh." Shit. What the hell was wrong with me? I might as well have suggested he spill his seed in me. "Edward, I don't think—"

He raised his eyebrows, blinking. "Yeah, that was weird. We're not talking about…?"

"No. I mean, not right now. Not today or…this year or…" Wait, did that sound like I might want to _talk _about it next year, or…I was digging an even deeper hole. How on earth did I stumble into this minefield?

"Settle down. Christ." He wiped his hands on a cloth and settled them on my hips. "Relax."

He rested his chin against my forehead and waited for my breathing to calm. I wished I could see his face; I could vaguely see his Adam's apple slide up and down from my too-close angle. The tree I was holding tilted between us, ticking my cheek. It occurred to me that he could have just poured the water out of the planter and started again, and I was about to say something when he spoke up.

"Bella?"

"Yes, Edward?"

"It's too soon, of course. I know that. If it's something you want to talk about…ever…whenever…we'll talk. Remember talking?"

I nodded.

"I like talking. You're good at it. You don't think that you are, but you are. Even if what you want to tell me is _no_, you'll find a way to tell me."

Holy shit. I refused to parse the intention behind that sentence construction. I closed my eyes and shook my head. It wasn't that I was against the idea, but I knew by now how important family was to him; I knew better than to have anything less than a completely serious conversation with him about it.

He took the sapling from my hands and rested it atop the soil in the planter. He rose up again to kiss me, soft and warm and breathy like nothing awkward had ever happened in the history of the universe. He started to speak again without taking his lips from mine.

"You can take your foot out of there anytime. Oh, and…don't wiggle your toes too much. You'll hurt the earthworms."

"Wha—nooo!" Now I was shrieking through laughter and squirming as he eased my leg up out of the planter and backed away from my reflexive kicking. "Edward! You wouldn't dare!"

"No, I wouldn't! I value my life!" He was laughing, his hands held high in the air, his dirt-speckled tee shirt rising up to expose the trail of dark hair leading beyond his waistband. It triggered a switch in me. The next thing I knew, he was standing in front of me drenched and astonished, and I was holding the dripping utility sink nozzle in one hand, grasping with the other to reel him in by his wet shirt.

Before I could get the thing up over his head, he wrapped his arms around me and pressed his wet body against me purposefully. "Oh, uh-uh. Don't do this to me, baby. Water spraying in the greenhouse? Really?"

"Why? There's a drain. It's perfect." My heart beat faster as drops of water fell from his hair onto my face.

"It's a cliché." He pried the nozzle out of my hand and gathered me closer, burying his face in my neck. "Just fucking kiss me."

I could do that. I did do that. His lips still held that smiling tension that told me he was happy, and that sent a jolt of excitement through me. I arched into him, feeling his hands travel up and down my spine. And then I felt the cold jet of water streaming across my skin and flooding my clothes, somewhere around the small of my back. I don't know what made me shiver more, the shock of the water or the unfamiliar sound of Edward's roaring laughter ringing in the air.

It must have been our yelping that attracted an audience to the doorway. I noticed Edward start and straighten suddenly while we were mid-wrestle, tangled in the long nozzle hose, dripping, my feet bare and muddy. The smile froze on his face and turned into an 'o' of surprise.

"Oh. Hi." He held me close to him, bracing his forearm across my chest and slyly concealing my suddenly sheer tee shirt now that we had company.

"Hello, dears." Esme looked on with a bemused expression. "We thought maybe a raccoon got into the greenhouse again."

Carlisle, beside her, squinted at Edward pensively before turning to go with a faint smile. Something told me he hadn't heard Edward laugh like that in a while, either.

~.~.~.~.~.~

It looked as though Carlisle was going to be the first to speak, but then again, he was only adjusting his posture. He rested his elbows on his knees and braided his hands together under his chin, his lips pressed together. Even if he didn't share DNA with Edward, I could see that they shared some mannerisms.

We had just finished telling Edward's family everything we knew: Edward's initial interpretation of the voicemail from Tanya on the night of her death; the Valentine's gift and what Edward believed it was when he found it; the more recent discoveries about Tanya's cancer; and finally, her declining vision. The family portrait Tanya had taken was here now, resting against the wall in Alice and Jasper's living room, resurrected from its basement storage purgatory. The brown paper wrapping was turning into a glowing ball of ash in the fireplace.

It was Jasper who finally broke the silence. "Rotten fucking deal. Christ." He stared at the blurry image of Tanya as if trying to make out her features—trying to compose an image of someone human in place of the monster they'd imagined. They all did.

Alice twisted her head toward us. "Edward, why did you never say anything? I mean, about the full extent of it…the creepy—no offense, Rose—the creepy Valentine?"

Edward, next to me on the piano bench, looked at the floor. "The usual. I thought it was better if no one else had to know. Just the…idea of it…can eat away at a person." He shook his head and looked up to meet Alice's eyes. She was nodding her head at him as if to say _yeah, exactly_.

"I know, Al. I just thought it was all said and done, and everyone knowing the gory details wouldn't have made a difference in any case. Or so I thought. It was a mistake, obviously."

Alice scrunched her face into a sad frown, and Jasper squeezed her knee.

Rose spoke up. "You might just as well ask Emmett or me why we never talk about our early relationship."

"Because it was private, Rose." Emmett spoke in a low, calm voice. "We thought it just involved us. And, to be honest, I was embarrassed by how I acted. Edward, if I hadn't made that childish ultimatum—"

"Don't." Edward's legs were stretched out long in front of him and crossed at the ankles. He started waving his feet back and forth and jiggling his hands in his pockets. "Listen, I don't think anybody needs to go back and account for every little thing. There's no blame, no fault. I could blame myself for not opening up to you, of course, but there's no point to it. I'm exhausted from looking back. I'm done keeping secrets; that's the main thing."

He leaned back, resting his elbows on the piano behind him. "I haven't really worked out what to do now. Should we tell anyone…anything?"

Carlisle raised his head up. "You're thinking about her reputation."

Edward didn't answer, but his eyes darkened, and I imagined him mentally sorting through the rumors that had spread after her death.

"Bella, you prompted this? You discovered the letter?"

I nodded. "The ethics guidelines allow for disclosure to a limited degree. But I don't believe we can make it public beyond just this small group."

"Then this is where it stays." Carlisle looked around the group. "Clearly, her privacy was of utmost importance to her. More than her reputation, even. I'm satisfied with leaving it here, now that we've…er, corrected our understanding of her intent with respect to Edward. Is everyone comfortable with that? What do the rest of you think?"

Esme was looking at Carlisle steadily. He nodded at her, and she began speaking. "Here's what I think. I don't know if any of you has had reason to use this anonymous advice service the library provides, but I know that it's highly valued by people in this community. People you know and love, I'm sure. We mustn't do anything to erode confidence in the safeguards protecting that archive."

Edward wasn't ready to let it go. "But what if the information won't hurt anyone? It will only help. She's…dead. She wanted to avoid us getting involved, and she did avoid it. Shouldn't the truth come out now?"

Esme turned to me. "Bella, sharing this internally was the right thing to do, and I imagine it wasn't an easy decision for you. I need to ask if you've found any other letters that might be…relevant to us?" She trailed off, and I shook my head. "Well, I'll tell you right now that if you look back to 1979, you will find a letter from Carlisle and one from me."

Alice's hand flew to her chest, and Jasper put an arm around her shoulder. Carlisle marched across the room and stood behind Esme, leaning down to circle her shoulders with his arms and murmur in her ear.

Esme continued, "We were so young and uncertain then, and we hadn't yet found ways to talk to one another about the most troubling…well, about my infertility. The advice we both received helped save our relationship. I…I truly believe I would have left your father if it meant he would have a better chance of having children with someone else."

She looked at Edward then, and his face paled. "It helped us imagine you, Edward. And you, Alice. It cleared away all the doubts and misinformation we had in our heads, and it made it possible for us to see our way clear to you." She swallowed and smiled at her children with shining eyes. "So, when I think of families today who need to reach out for good information, it's not really information I see. It's your faces."

Edward was nodding his head, looking down at the carpet. "Okay, Mom." His voice was barely audible, thick with emotion. "I agree."

~.~.~.~.~.~

On Thursday, Edward asked me to bring some dinner and meet him out at his installation site. I parked behind the health rehab center like I had the first time I visited this place with Edward.

The path was bordered on both sides by deep snow and bore checkerboard markings from the treads of some kind of off-road vehicle. I saw a white light filtering through the trees ahead, and I began to hear the low rumbling noise of a generator. When I cleared the woods, I saw that an industrial spotlight was held aloft by a crane. The two large silos and wide rectangular hall had been painted a uniform, spotless white. Various pieces of equipment were arranged next to the silos, some of them with cords running to a generator, others covered by plastic tarps. Edward stood in the doorway of the furthest grain silo, his arms folded across his chest, smiling as he watched me walk toward him.

"Hi." He took the carry-out bag from me.

"Hi." I gestured to the heavy equipment scattered around the site. "What is all this? Who set this up for you?"

"Who set it up for me? I set it up myself, city girl." He always made fun of me for being impressed by his capabilities, but I could see his eyes shine. "I have a couple of students helping with construction as their inter-term project."

"Well, then, tell me what it's all for."

He pointed here and there, naming functions. "Electricity. Hoisting heavy things. Light. Heat. This converts to a vacuum, too. That's a freezer. More saws and stuff are inside."

"Really, a freezer?" I looked around at the snow and ice all over the place, mystified about why he might need a freezer. "You've got yourself a real serial killer's dream workshop here, you know."

He laughed. "I've already said too much. Come inside."

We sat on a drop-cloth covered sofa and ate our Chinese carry out. The silo was heated to a comfortable room temperature and smelled faintly like wax. Half the space was obscured by hanging tarps. The buzz of anticipation was building in me but not so much that I was tempted to ask for a peek.

It was a thrill to see him so obviously excited about the progress he was making. I was knotting up the bags full of our leftovers, getting ready to leave him to his work again, when he put a hand on my leg.

"Will you help me with a few things before you go?"

"Of course. What is it?"

"Well, it's for the piece." He looked nervous. "I'll explain. If you don't feel comfortable at any time, just let me know. It's totally fine."

"You're not going to sculpt me naked, are you?"

"No. Are you kidding? Jeff Koons would have my nuts in a vice for stealing his idea." I snickered at the comparison; Koons had famously based a series of explicit paintings and sculptures on himself and his Italian porn star wife. Edward smoothed his hands down my arms. "Nothing like that. Not even close."

He pointed to the far side of the room where a row of ropes hung down from pulleys in front of the hanging tarps. "This part has something to do with weights and balances. I'm gonna ask you to put your weight on this rope for a minute, and you'll act as a counterbalance to what's on the other side. Okay?"

"Are you sure you don't want someone stronger?"

"No, this is perfect. I, um…it's my sneaky way of calculating your weight, to be honest. Not in pounds, though. More like in materials. It's just a primitive scale. That's all."

"This sounds weird. I don't understand you art people."

"I know. You will. Trust me." He positioned my hands around the rope. "Did you ever have to climb a rope in gym class?"

"Don't remind me."

"Well, you don't have to climb it. This is way easier. Just put your feet on this knot and hold on. Let me know when you feel yourself rise up off the ground. And when I say 'up', it's only going to be an inch or two."

He disappeared behind the tarp. I could hear him shuffling materials around, and in no time at all, I felt myself being lifted up a couple of inches off the ground. I could feel the tension in the rope and the sensation of something heavy on the other side of that pulley.

"Okay, I'm up! Don't swing me!" I felt like the world's most timid trapeze artist.

"I won't, I won't. Look, we're done. I'm letting you down." I stepped off of the rope, and he came out from behind the tarp, taking off a pair of work gloves as he walked toward me. "Thanks. Sorry to be so cryptic. I can't wait for you to see this when it's done."

"No problem. It's kind of fun…like, I can't explain it exactly…"

"Well, you know, some would call it consciousness-raising vis-à-vis the physical and energetic gravitas of being alive; but whatever, don't let me put words in your mouth." This was a favorite game of his—feigned arty affectation. It made me chuckle. He could spout a whole lecture's worth of this stuff when he wanted to.

"Okay, here's another thing." He led me over to a table crowded with electronic equipment. "I've been recording people's heartbeats. I'll layer all the tracks to create one big mix, with no identification, if that worries you. But…" He sat at the console and put a pair of headphones on his ears, leaving one askew so he could hear me. "I'll know."

He had me sit in a chair and pointed to a stethoscope that was wired into the soundboard. "This runs the sound through some filters that isolate and amplify a recognizable beat. What do you say?" He warmed the stethoscope between his palms.

I nodded. He smiled. "You can talk. It won't spoil it. I can edit a lot out if I need to."

He was all business, moving my collar aside and slipping the stethoscope in against my skin. I watched his face as he worked. He put both earphones on and listened intently, adjusting levels on the recording and making notations on paper. From time to time he closed his eyes.

He flipped a switch and took his earphone away for a moment, leaning toward a small microphone. "Swan, resting heartbeat." He turned to me. "That was awesome."

He continued to look at me silently for a moment, thinking something over. He pressed the stethoscope against my skin again and replaced his headphones, pausing to make more adjustments on the soundboard.

"I just want to try…one thing." A crafty smile crept across his face.

He leaned in, making eye contact to read my reaction. His lips curled up as he kissed me. Maybe it was just that I was already hyperaware of my own heartbeat, but the contact made my pulse quicken. His breath, his warmth, his tongue. And my pulse quickening made him deepen the kiss, and so on and so on. After a few moments I bit back a groan, feeling light in the head. Edward suddenly sucked in a sharp breath and pulled back, his face pink.

"Jesus. I'm sorry, I didn't expect that. Are you okay?"

"I'm okay. What is it? Are you okay?"

He raised his eyebrows and smiled sheepishly. "I can't fucking use that. No way. This is between you and me." He listened to the playback on his headphones to check the levels, growing even redder.

"It sounds dramatic on the headphones, I guess. As loud as that."

"Can I hear?"

He nodded, his eyes glittering. "I suppose it's only fair."

I expected him to put the headphones on my ears, but he unplugged them altogether and twisted a dial so we were both listening to the sound amplified through speakers.

I felt my cheeks flush, listening to the rapid escalation of my own heartbeat, watching the slow burn of fascination in Edward's face. I nodded my head. "Yeah. That's how it feels, all right."

"Damn." He couldn't keep the satisfied smile off of his face. I liked knowing that he'd seen this glimpse of how much he affected me.

He began to wrap the cord of the headphones into a coil, and I put my hand on his to stop him. "Wait—hold on. I have another idea."

He turned toward me, his eyes wide. He blinked a few times. "What, now?"

I took the headphones from him and settled them on my own head, leaving one ear askew like he had done.

He was frozen, watching me. Only his eyes moved. "So, uh…what exactly did you have in mind?"

I scooted my chair closer and braced my hands on his knees. The opportunity was just too good. I let my gaze flicker to his lap once and then watched his face register the realization.

"No one else will hear this? Just us?"

He nodded. I handed him the stethoscope.

I made myself still my hands when I reached his belt. "Stop me if this gets to be too much. I mean, you're trying to make art in this space, I don't want to presume…"

He shook his head, his eyelids falling heavily. He swallowed and flipped a switch blindly, leaned back, and pressed the scope over his heart with a flat hand like he was saying a pledge. I adjusted my earpiece and smiled in confirmation, hearing his strong heartbeat resonating in my skull.

His pulse started fluttering with the first pass of my hand over his pants where he was stiff and swollen. I unbuttoned his fly slowly. His pulse staggered again when I met his eye and ran my tongue around my lips. His chest was rising and falling steadily, his jaw rigid.

When my tongue met with the salty drip on the smooth head of his cock, the effect on his pulse was so direct I felt an overpowering rush of ego, and it took all of my willpower to keep from racing ahead and driving his pulse higher and higher as quickly as possible, just because I could. I moaned and set that impulse aside, closing my eyes, focusing on the complicated rhythms of his heart, the sound waves vibrating in my ears. This connection was so immediate, so intimate; I felt and sensed his every response—felt how unguarded and exposed he was, how alive. I was so wet I could feel a slick spot even against my jeans.

To be honest, the idea of prolonging a blow job on purpose sounded absurd to me before Edward. But hearing the way he groaned, feeling the way his cock swelled and throbbed in my mouth, imagining the siren sweet high of his almost-orgasm, made me want to draw it out forever. And now I had this extra signal to guide me, a hard-wired Morse code beating with escalating intensity, teaching me what felt good and what felt white-hot, blinding.

His thighs trembled. I felt and heard the rumbling of his chest beneath the strong pounding of his heartbeat. A muffled scratching sound startled me; his hand holding the scope was shaking. Suddenly I felt the headphones being pried from my ears, and before I knew it the sound was all around both of us, coming from the speakers now, filling the room and blending with the hoarse sound of his incoherent voice. I joined my own moaning to the chorus and brought the slightest new measure of pressure to his cock, then the slightest soft tug below, reveling in the feeling of him finally releasing everything. And his heartbeat. That heartbeat I felt in my own heart, my own veins.

"Jesus fucking Christ, why do I deserve you? Holy hell." He was breathless, stroking my hair where I rested on his stomach as we listened to his furious heartbeat gradually calm for a moment before he let the stethoscope fall away. He sat up fast to pull me in close, dizzying himself, then sat whispering in my ear and blanketing my face with kisses until he had his bearings to stand.

He held his pants up with one hand and lifted me with the other, walking us toward the couch. He made quick work of getting me naked and didn't tear his eyes away while he whipped his own clothes off. He pulled me on top of him, sliding with me until he was hard again, cursing and clenching his jaw when he slipped inside me. I could feel him studying me, watching the way the light and shadows played on the shape of my breasts, feeling the warmth of my skin, revisiting my heartbeat. If there was ever any possibility of feeling self-conscious, it was all forgotten as I watched Edward's face. He was as open and relaxed as I'd ever seen him, as he might be if no one was watching. But I was watching now. And he was seeing me—really seeing me. I had the strangest feeling of being melded with him, as if we weren't even two separate people. His eyes burned through me when I melted and came apart around him; and as soon as it occurred to me to wonder whether he felt the same, searching his face, I heard his husky voice, quiet and soft, saying _yes. Yes, I feel it, too_.

Afterward, he pulled me to curl around him on the couch, hitching my leg up around his hip. His face was unreadable. If I didn't know better, I would think he was bashful.

"What is it?"

He cleared his throat. "This is going to sound so flaky. Don't laugh, but…I had all these plans and ploys in mind so I could get to, you know, feel your energy in this space."

"Um…okay." I couldn't help the giggle that escaped me. I pictured Edward holding my hand in his, dangling a crystal while candles flickered. In my mind's eye he was wearing a fringed poncho. "My energy? I never figured you for the type, Cullen."

"Yeah, well. I was counting on you humoring me, because I know you know you're kind of influential to this piece and…"

"Wait, humor you how? What sort of ploy?"

He looked at me testily, pleading with me not to give him shit. And then it dawned on me what he meant. _Oh._ This was too good.

I had to cover my mouth to stifle the guffaws that were bubbling up. "You wanted to feel my...energy? My womanly energy?" I twisted and rose up to straddle his body, leaning in.

"Shut up. Yes." He was chuckling softly now, leaning back and hitching my knees closer to his torso where I straddled him. "I thought I said don't laugh."

"Okay, so, how do you want to feel it, this energy? You want me to put it in you? Nice and gentle? You want me to give it to you really strong and hard?" His stomach muscles beneath me were pulsing as he laughed. "I've been waiting for you to ask. All you had to do was ask."

He started stroking my hair, smoothing it back away from my face. He shook his head at me, smiling. "Why do I love it when you laugh at me? I already feel it, B. This is perfect. This is your energy right here. You're perfect." He tented his knees behind me, resting his feet flat on the couch, and I could feel his legs swaying back and forth, rocking me gently.

"You're a sensitive artist." I bent to brush my lips against his. "And I love you."

I did love him. Never in my wildest dreams would I have guessed that it could be enough. And yet, somehow, it was.

~.~.~.~.~.~


	25. Chapter 24: Blind Spots

**AN:** I'm all teary-eyed over how great **happymelt**, **faireyfan**, and **midsouthmama** are as beta and prereaders. Such terrific ladies!

**Playlist:**  
**Zebra** by Beach House and **When I'm Sixy-Four** by the Beatles. Links are on my profile. Enjoy!

**Chapter 24: Blind Spots**

~.~.~.~.~.~

If I were a superstitious person, I would have had ample reason to be concerned with the way my year began. But I never have been superstitious. As it was, I was merely grumpy.

It all began with a phone call on New Year's Day. I was sitting in my parked truck with the engine running, en route from my place to Edward's, waiting for him to retrieve hot coffees from Muddywaters. We were both out of beans, and the grocery stores were closed. I turned the heater up and contemplated the previous night's events.

After closing out 2009 at Edward's installation site in a way that felt unmistakably right and proper, he and I had joined our friends at the Lodge. It was the rowdiest of the town's three bars and would normally have been packed with students. On New Year's Eve, however, the place was overtaken by Clearwater residents—townspeople and faculty alike, all joining in an annual live band karaoke tradition. I'd stayed tucked away in a booth for most of the night, content to enjoy the show from a distance. I let myself be taken on a few spins around the dance floor with whoever wasn't on stage at that particular moment.

Throughout it all, Edward's rediscovered sense of playfulness was in full effect. He recruited Esme to sing a duet while he pounded the piano keys and crooned like they were a hotel lounge act. He let the provost's daughters choreograph him as a back-up dancer to their hip-hop song. He found a trove of odd instruments and passed them out to anyone who admitted the slightest musical ability, cobbling together a passable rendition of _When I'm Sixty-Four_. Closing my eyes behind my dark glasses now, I conjured up the image of him swaying onstage, never breaking eye contact with me as he grinned and flirted his way through the song. I cracked a smile at the memory of it.

My phone rang, and I fumbled to answer it quickly, careful not to aggravate the hangover elves who had been more or less merciful up to this point. I pressed the phone to my ear gingerly.

"Hey, Jake." My voice sounded like a growl.

"Wow. Someone sounds happy to be awake on this fine morning."

"Mmm. Uh, happy New Year."

"You too. Listen, I'll let you get back to sleep—"

"No, I'm not—" We were talking over one another.

"But I just wanted…what?"

"I'm in my car, that's all. You didn't wake me. You go."

"Well, I was just calling about the birthday remembrance for your mom we've got coming up. I wanted to give you a heads up about what Phil might be arranging."

I was starting to feel the bile creep up the back of my throat now. "What might Phil be arranging?"

I tried to peer into the semi-dark café. Where was Edward with our coffees? Sue hadn't exactly opened up shop yet, but she never said no to Edward.

"Well, he invited Dr. Ateara and Dr. Call to be there…which I know is something we all talked about." I grimaced and nodded dumbly, knowing Jake couldn't see me nodding. These were the surgeons who performed the transplant procedure; they were among its pioneers, in fact. "But now I hear around the hospital that the PR office wants to send a writer to shadow them and talk to the rest of us about our experiences."

I turned my head and watched Edward climb into the truck and settle our coffee cups into the holders. A brown bag of coffee beans dropped onto the seat bench from under his elbow. His face clouded with concern when he saw my face.

"Our _experiences_? No—I can't even…of a failed procedure? That's the image they want in the news?"

Over the phone I heard Jake sigh. "That's just it, Bella. From a scientific point of view, it has value. I'm sorry, I know this isn't what you want to hear, but your mom's experience helped us learn so much about antirejection interventions. The procedure itself was perfect. You know that. It was the aftermath…"

I cracked open my door just in time to lean down and vomit on the street. For some reason, I was fixated on the fact that I heard him say _us_. Helped _us_ learn. Since when had Jake switched teams?

Edward pried the phone out of my hand and handed me a napkin. "Uh, she'll call you back." He shut the phone down, and then I felt the warmth of his hands on my shoulders and back. "Baby, what can I do?"

I yanked the driver's side door shut, shaking my head. Ow—shaking my head was a mistake.

"Wanna let me drive? We'll be home in a minute." I nodded to this and let him lift me onto his lap briefly so we could trade seats. I moved to take a drink of coffee, and he stopped me just before my disgusting lips touched the rim of what turned out to be his mocha. He traded cups with me, teasing me gently. "Sweetheart…morning breath is one thing, but come on."

I sighed. I thought of my toothbrush sitting next to his in the porcelain cup on his bathroom counter, ready and waiting for me. A dutiful soldier. I drank my coffee eagerly.

Edward glanced my way when I chuckled, remembering something.

"What?"

"Oh, just…something my mom used to say."

"Well, what? I wanna hear it."

"She used to say, 'It's nice to have someone to kiss at midnight, but hold on to the one who kisses you the morning after, too.'"

He looked back and forth between me, the road, and the rearview mirror. My stomach tensed when he pulled the car over to the side of the road. His smirk was unreadable.

"Edward, wh—"

"No. She was right." He slid over to me on the bench seat and wrapped his arms around my waist and neck like we were in a Hollywood movie. I couldn't stop giggling and twisting my head away from him. "Hold still."

I pinched my lips closed as he bent down give me a quick peck—on the cheek.

"Gross."

"Yeah, well. That's the point, isn't it?" He slid back to his side and resumed driving, still grinning like an idiot. "One day you'll be ninety-seven and wear dentures and need a scooter to get around, and I'm gonna fucking show up for that, too."

I simply stared, gently shaking my head. I might have been smiling, just like him.

~.~.~.~.~.~

Later in the day, Edward came across me scowling at my laptop screen. Jake's phone call had stirred up my curiosity about the current standard of care for lung transplants, and before I knew it I had been reading journal articles and science news for three hours.

I could feel Edward's breath as he hovered over my shoulder. He put a hand on my neck, massaging it. "Do you think you would make a different decision today, knowing what you know?"

I continued to stare blankly at my screen. _Knowing what I know_. He could have been referring to the science I was looking into, but I had a feeling he was talking about the outcome for Renee. _Knowing she would die anyways, would you still do it?_ "I just don't know."

What I didn't say was that a part of me wished Renee had made the decision for me; I wished she could have somehow known and accepted her fate and refused the surgery. It would have been so much simpler. I could have said a proper goodbye. The knowledge hung there inside of me like a lead weight where my heart should be—a lead weight wrapped in a murky blanket of guilt.

~.~.~.~.~.~

Edward was working a lot at night now. And during the mornings. At noon, at dusk. He said it had something to do with different qualities of light and darkness. As much as he was working, he seemed content. Sometimes I would notice him slipping out of bed in the middle of the night, and I would simultaneously feel a giddy thrill and a twinge of grief at him leaving; he would be back soon, you see, and he would climb in beside me smelling like fresh air with his heart beating faster than mine, his feet and hands colder than mine, torturing me with his closeness. I loved it. I would burrow into the still-warm sheets on his side of the bed and fall back to sleep, drunk with anticipation.

One Sunday evening he joined me in front of the fire at his place, having wrapped up work for the day and showered. He lowered himself to the couch opposite me, only to hop up again and rifle through the Sunday paper lying on the table. "Are you done with these sections?"

"I'm done with all of it." I had moved on from the paper to my pile of poetry books, halfheartedly searching for a selection that felt appropriate for Renee's birthday remembrance event.

He gathered the sections he wanted and paused to plant a kiss on the top of my head. He glanced at what I was reading. "Plath? Really?"

"Eh. It's too dark, I guess." I turned back to the poems. There was something oddly comforting in her vivid and unvarnished words.

Edward returned to his seat and began scanning the arts section. A moment later, though, I felt his eyes on me. I looked up.

"Don't worry. I'm not going to read Sylvia Plath aloud to commemorate my mother." I shook my head. Plath's ideas about motherhood were…controversial. "I'm just enjoying the way she writes about nature and winter. She does make a compelling case about what a powerful force nature is…a case for letting nature take its course."

His posture stiffened. I noticed it out of the corner of my eye, even as I kept my head in my book. After a silent moment, he rose slowly to his feet and stood with his hands on his hips, staring into the brightly lit kitchen.

I lifted my head to look at him, feeling my lips twist to the side. What was he thinking? An image came to mind of Edward standing in a similar posture once before—after I'd shown him Tanya's letter. My words came back to me, and I realized how it sounded. Many people only knew Sylvia Plath for her suicide and connected everything to it.

He scrubbed his face with his dry hands and spoke without looking at me. "The path of least resistance, huh?"

"Edward, I…that's not what I meant. I just meant…when she writes about nature, she makes herself into this passive observer, I think, and..." This was complicated, and I couldn't explain myself. He looked about as bothered as I'd ever seen him get. I could practically see the wheels turning as he calculated how to respond to me.

He puffed his cheeks out, shaking his head. "'If you expect nothing from anybody, you're never disappointed.' That's her, right?"

I nodded. "Yes, but she wrote that in a novel. That was her protagonist speaking—she didn't feel that way personally. Not necessarily." Were we really analyzing literature right now? I had a feeling we were talking about two different things.

When he finally met my eye, his expression was blank. "We're all out of...milk, I guess. I'm…taking a walk." He spun toward the door, checked his pockets, and grabbed his coat on the way out.

~.~.~.~.~.~

About an hour later, I was soaking in a bubble bath with a different book—Carl Sandburg this time—when I heard him on the stairs. I'd turned out most of the lights, but the fire was still giving me enough light to read by, and I could see a soft smile on his face when he walked in to see me in the tub.

He really had gone for milk. He put it away in the fridge and then walked over and dropped a different package on the floor next to the tub. He leaned down, hooked a finger around the chain to the drain stopper, and eased it up. I listened to the water gurgling down and chanced a questioning look at his face.

"I was doing math all day, so I'm fairly confident in estimating that this would overflow if we don't let out a few gallons first."

I blinked. His shoes were off, and his pants were close behind. He wasn't booting me out of the bath. He was getting in with me.

"Why were you doing math all day?" I sat up straighter, dropping my book to the floor, pulling my knees in, and scooting forward to allow him room.

"Typical art stuff. Mass, volume, weight. Thermal dynamics." As he eased himself into the tub behind me, the water level rose to very near the edge. He sank down slowly, keeping a close eye on it. His body was so much bigger than mine. "You can always pick out the lightweights in Sculpture 101, because they blow off their calculations."

As soon as he was settled in the tub, his legs framing mine, I leaned back to rest on his chest, tilting my head up. He brought his arms around me and sighed. The tension between us was still there, but the way he held me told me it was just that: tension. Not a crisis. We would deal with it.

He nudged the drain stopper back in with his foot, then bumped the spigot knob with his toe to let more hot water into the tub. I felt the warmth of the water drifting toward me from one end and the warmth of his body behind me. A resurgence of bubbles foamed up.

"I brought us some books." He smoothed his wet fingers over my eyebrows, as if he knew I was bound to start frowning. "About grief and trauma."

I rolled my head to the side, peering at the bag he'd dropped. "Oh…okay."

Truthfully, it didn't shock me that he was bringing this up. I had been feeling something gnawing at the edges of my consciousness for a while, but I hadn't realized it was obvious to him, too. Ignoring it was my only strategy.

"And…I want you to consider talking to someone. Carmen has a partner in her practice, Eleazar." He took a deep breath. "Ever since that blizzard, it seems like something is going on with you, and…if you can't share it with me, well…I don't want you to feel like you need to go through it alone."

I could hear in his voice how hard it was for him to suggest he couldn't help me with whatever this was. I felt a crushing sense of guilt. "I'm not shutting you out, Edward. Not on purpose."

He took another deep breath. "Okay."

"All I know is that I feel agitated sometimes, and when things come at me out of the blue like that call from Jake…somebody wanting to put a positive spin on our situation, I just…" I trailed off, tightening my arms and his arms around my middle.

"It's okay to react, you know. Your feelings are what they are. There's no rule book." He stretched his leg again to prod the hot water knob, turning it off. "After I came to live with Carlisle and Esme, I didn't speak for almost a year. Or so I'm told. I don't remember much of it. What I remember is more like a feeling, a rationale I kept repeating to myself."

I turned myself around in the tub so I could see him, tenting my knees on either side of his ribcage. He circled his arms around my back, supporting me. After a moment I felt the warm, soapy washcloth trailing up and down my spine.

"I decided as long as I refused to acknowledge these new people, I wouldn't be betraying Edward and Elizabeth. It was this bargain I invented. I thought somehow I could be with them again…as if I was just having a dream or something." His eyes flickered to my face from time to time, but for the most part he was looking out toward the fireplace.

"Will you tell me how they died? Was it a car accident?" I felt slightly shocked that I had never asked him this before. I was so quick to assume no one liked talking about a painful loss, but surely after thirty years he would be willing to tell me.

"Uh, no, not an accident…it was the stupidest thing…they went on a silly five-day vacation to the Caribbean and contracted malaria."

I winced. "I didn't even know that was still possible."

"Well, it isn't possible in the U.S…and it's very rare in the Caribbean. Even in 1980 it was rare." He began finger-coming the hair away from my face. "That's what's ironic. These were two people who routinely did public health service work in Africa, Cambodia, India…they took every precaution. Anti-malaria pills every few months, a different regimen for each new destination. Then they stopped in order to have me. They stopped traveling, so they stopped the preventative measures."

I gulped back tears, diving in to rest my head on his chest.

"Then, when I was almost four, they went on vacation, came home, and a couple of months later, they apparently thought they had the flu. When they understood the gravity of the situation, it was too late." He hummed, soothing me. I realized I was gripping his shoulders tightly. "Um, that's how malaria kills people, you know. Because treatments do exist if you catch it in time. It stays dormant in your liver for a while, proliferating…then the symptoms seem like the flu…so it's easy to let it progress too far."

"Jesus, Edward." _Ironic_ was a grossly insufficient way to describe what he was describing. Was this how it could be after gaining thirty years' distance from such a thing? His voice was full of tenderness and disappointment, but he didn't seem anguished. In fact, it sounded more like he was trying to keep _me_ from freaking out.

"Yeah."

Something occurred to me that made me sit up straight. "Were you at risk? Could you have caught it? Oh, God, were they worried about you, too, when they were sick?"

"Shhh. No. No. You have to be bitten by an infected mosquito. They knew I was safe. Are you cold?"

I shook my head, but I leaned back so more of me was immersed in the warm, sudsy water. It felt a little bit odd, being this close to him and naked while we discussed something so difficult. He lifted my legs and maneuvered me so my ankles were crossed, both feet resting on his chest.

"Is this comfortable?"

I nodded, and he began absent-mindedly dragging the warm cloth up and down my shins.

"Listen…I'm not exactly sure why I'm telling you this, but I'll never forget that they fought hard every moment. Dying from malaria is ugly and painful, but they never gave up. I witnessed more than Carlisle and Esme even know about." He stilled his hands on my ankles, deep in thought. "Carmen and I have been talking a lot these days…in reference to Tanya…about philosophies of death with dignity and assisted suicide, all that type of stuff. It still seems absolutely foreign to me, the idea of giving up hope like that. And all I can think about is that Elizabeth and Edward never stopped fighting to…stay with me, you know."

I knew why he was telling me this. I nodded and looked him in the eye.

"It was terrible that they fought so hard and lost, B. But it was important that they fought."

I gripped Edward's knee. "This partner of Carmen's…I'll talk to him." I said. "I promise. I will."

~.~.~.~.~.~

On the Thursday before Edward's show opening, I stood at the window overlooking his long gravel driveway, watching for Peter and Charlotte's black Prius to appear. Peter had been sending me snapshots from his phone all morning: a road sign warning of a tractor; an actual tractor; cows. Oh, the novelty. The two of them were on the job market, and when Charlotte was asked to go to Pittsburgh for an interview, they decided to route their return trip through Clearwater.

When they finally rolled up, I was ready with the heavy artillery: warm, strawberry-rhubarb pie and hot cider with cinnamon sticks.

Peter stretched his legs out in front of him and made a show of inspecting his fork. "Such a wily and enigmatic animal, the rhubarb."

It felt good to laugh. Charlotte rolled her eyes. Peter hadn't changed a bit.

I nudged his foot with mine. "Trying to make me believe you can't differentiate animals from plants?"

"We live in the city, my dear, where it is necessary to differentiate your food from the aluminum foil it comes wrapped in, and that is all." He was facing away from the white enamel kitchen, toward the living room, but looked at me out of the corner of his eye. "Yes, I know rhubarb is a vegetable. A vegetable strangely suited to deliciously sweet pies."

I cleared our plates into the sink. "Um, according to taxation law, it's certified as a fruit."

Charlotte chuckled at my certifiable nerdiness. We moved to the couch. She filled me in on her interview and what she thought her prospects were, and Peter interjected from time to time with observations, apropos of nothing.

"Is this a local custom?" He tilted his head toward the bathtub in the middle of the room.

"No. It's an Edward custom."

"Suddenly glad I showered at the hotel this morning. Char, you didn't—whatever will you do?" He leered at her.

I figured that was as good a time as any to move the party along. "Actually, you'll sleep at my place tonight, and I'm sleeping next door at Edward's sister's. You can shower there before we get dinner, if you like."

I could see Peter practically physically stop himself from asking me where Edward would sleep. I shook my head at him.

"Edward will probably crash out on site—he'll be working all night, finishing up loose ends. I just wanted you to see this place, you know?"

Charlotte stood up as I moved to get our coats. "I'm glad you did. All this time Peter imagined you were sleeping in a hayloft."

Peter swiped his hat from my hand with exaggerated bitterness. "Let's go. The illusion is shattered now; it's no use."

Showing them around town was fun. Edward met us for dinner. Charlotte and Peter asked about putting up with the cold winters on a long-term basis, and Edward explained how the academic calendar allowed for long January vacations. In fact, he reminded me that Esme and Carlisle were headed out to Miami the next day, and then to some island off the coast of Brazil. I had agreed to check in on the chickens while they were out of town—a detail that delighted Peter to no end. Edward surprised me with talk of taking a long road trip together one day, and we all compared notes about the places we thought were worth a stop. Austin. Santa Fe. Tucson. Vegas. Then the whole west coast, from San Diego to Bellingham.

Edward walked with us to Muddywaters before heading back out to his workshop in the woods. Peter and Charlotte were only staying one night, just long enough to see the installation on Friday before the long drive back to Chicago. I was glad to see my old friends, and I welcomed the distraction of their company; I could hardly contain my excitement for the opening the next day.

~.~.~.~.~.~

The three of us arrived at the installation site in the mid-afternoon. Charlotte and Peter headed in purposefully after saying said their goodbyes to me, claiming they wanted to hit the road and make the most of the remaining light. Perhaps they sensed I wanted to be left to my own devices for this. The long path to the hidden clearing had been widened and groomed, and lanterns illuminated the undersides of the heavy cover of trees, subtly leading visitors onward. When I emerged from the woody trail, I saw a few dozen people milling around, chatting excitedly, puffs of breath floating up in front of their faces. Edward made a beeline for me as soon as he saw me.

"Good, you're here. I saw Peter and Charlotte already, and Angela."

"Of course I'm here!" I tried to read his expression, to see if he was pleased with how things were going. He seemed dazed.

"I mean, this is a good time. The sunlight…you know what, never mind. Have fun. Look around. I plan on bringing you back here at night, too. It's not going anywhere." He laughed.

I shook my head. He was wound up like a kid on Christmas. The corners of his eyes showed the tiny lines that meant he was tired, but he was happy. I realized how much I'd been missing him over these busy past few days. He patted me on both shoulders and nodded at someone he glimpsed over my shoulder. I turned my head to see an older man in an ankle-length black wool coat striding toward us with a tight smile plastered on his face.

"That's Aro, my New York gallery guy. I've got to talk to him. Go, go. Take a look before he spoils everything for you." He pointed me toward the first silo and even gave me a light shove.

I could see light spilling out from the door to the silo. My heart was beating in my ears. The placard at the entrance read _Life/Gestation (Esme)_. Curious—I wondered what Edward had created on this topic, given Esme's infertility. I took a breath and walked inside.

For the first few moments, I was blinded. Everything was white. Then I saw a glint of light high up above, and my eyes started focusing. The shadowless, curved walls of the silo and the concrete floor were painted stark white. The hollow column of the silo, about forty feet in diameter and five or six stories high, was filled with dozens of matte white spheres of all different sizes, hanging at random intervals from the ceiling down to just a few feet above my head. They were chalky and smooth on the surface but with some bulging irregularities that made them look organic, like pods. Some of them were very tiny, and the largest were big enough that an adult could curl up inside. The sound of a water droplet made me realize they were made of snow and ice.

As I walked farther into the space, I could make out other shapes higher up. Mirrors. They hung amongst the pods, almost impossible to see, reflecting whiteness and light against white light backgrounds. I started to feel disoriented, as if I was somehow looking at light instead of at objects. At the very top, hanging from the ceiling, were several large pointy icicles that occasionally released drops onto everything hanging below, like some sort of water torture mechanism.

And then I reached the far side of the room and heard myself gasp.

One of the pods, high above and close to the light source, had melted down enough to reveal a core that was made of something brilliant, solid, and colorful, shining like a gemstone in the rough. The emerald green glass or whatever it was reflected colorful light onto the nearby pods. I felt goose bumps bloom across my skin when it occurred to me that more of these pods—most of them, all of them—might contain such a beautiful hidden bounty. I could just make out the tips of different colored shards and glass blocks breaking the surface here and there. When all the snow and ice eventually melted, the room would be transformed into a symphony of color and light. _Gestation_, indeed.

When I finally rejoined the crowds in the clearing outside the silo, I made out Edward across the way with Esme tucked under his arm. They were both smiling as they talked; it was obvious to me she had already seen the exhibit. Some people who had been in the silo with me pointed at them and conferred with each other, their faces lighting up. I felt so proud of Edward—and so eager to see the rest.

He made eye contact, and we exchanged nods and smiles. As I turned toward the middle building—the large, roofless rectangular field house—I noticed people passing me by, looking at me strangely. One of them pointed at me while whispering to his companion. I tried to shake it off. Angela approached, shaking her head with a knowing smirk.

"Angela, what is it?" I veered over, closer to her.

She stopped in her tracks. "You really don't know?"

"No." I thought back to the other night in the silo and Edward's comments about _my energy_.

"I won't ruin it for you, Bella. Just…call me later!" She giggled and walked off, leaving me there.

I shrugged and closed the distance to the field house. Even from the outside I could hear a rhythmic sound I recognized as a heartbeat. I located a placard that read _Life/Survival_. The entrance to the installation was a long, narrow hallway, engineered so that only one person could pass through at a time. The recording seemed to vibrate through the high walls. I blushed at the sense memory of this echo in my ears. Red light was pouring out of the gap in the wall up ahead, and the heartbeat sounds grew louder and more all-encompassing as I walked on.

When I reached the inner doorway, I reared back as if thrown by a force field.

I felt as though I was looking at the inside of my own heart—my real one, the raw and angry one I'd never shown to anyone, my dark and bitter heart of a year ago, the one I carefully kept hidden even now.

The path I stood on appeared to lead into a maze inside of that mess of hot, glaring, furious hurt, and I knew I couldn't move my feet forward. I could barely look at it. Someone behind me lingered awkwardly, waiting for me to move, and I pressed myself against the wall to let her pass. Why was she so unaffected?

I don't know how long I stood rooted in that spot. My feet sank into a carpet of red lacquered wood chips and misshapen triangles of scarlet and magenta felt. More than a few people shimmied past me, making me feel more and more ridiculous. I could hear their exclamations of delight and wonder deeper within the space. This installation was like a three-dimensional Rorschach test, and I was failing.

A new problem presented itself now: how to extricate myself. There was no deciding between fight or flight—flight was my only option. I knew that I could back away, retrace my steps down the hallway. But what about Edward? He'd see me coming out the entrance, wouldn't he? And how could I explain myself to him without disappointing him yet again, without showing him just how weak and pitiful I really was?

An answer came to me as clear as day—a future I hadn't considered, but one that seemed as inevitable as breathing now. Of course it made sense; it was perfect. Edward was healthy. He was happy. He had his family surrounding him, his success, a new semester starting, his community art project. The old self-loathing and virtual isolation that had so dominated the person I met, the person who had allowed himself to be with me, was all long gone.

He would be well, and I was ecstatic about that.

In the meantime, here I was—a hyperventilating, pink-faced mess, leaking tears onto the red-tinged blanket of scraps on the threshold of this beautiful man's beautiful art installation. It went deeper than that, of course; I had only just broken the surface, after all this time. I couldn't be healthy for him, not like he deserved. The pain in my chest sliced like knives.

This was a man who wanted a family, for God's sake. He wanted a vegetable garden and road trip pilgrimages and normal kinds of zany adventures. The mismatch was comical to me, really. I had already hurt him thoughtlessly. More than once. The idea that I could spare him more of the same jolted me out of my spiral of self-pitying despair.

I crept back down the hallway and peeked around the corner. Edward was deep in conversation with Aro again, and that reporter, Heidi—I recognized her from her picture in _Art Face_ magazine. All that was left was to slip out unnoticed. Yes, I could do this. Peter and Charlotte were somewhere around here, with access to a car, with a destination—there they were, disappearing down the path to the parking lot.

I stumbled just once on my way out of the installation, pausing to kick the felt scraps off of my shoes. The icy path slowed me, and I was weirdly thrilled by the idea that so many people had tramped down this way for Edward. More were on their way in, small clusters here and there exclaiming boisterously, barely perturbed as I dodged and jostled them. A row of tree-hung lanterns glowed in the late-afternoon shadows.

The woods parted finally, and I emerged from the path. I made out Charlotte and Peter a few hundred yards away, the lone human figures in the snow-dusted lot. They turned back when I called to them. I could see their mouths moving as they looked my way and paused, car doors open.

My pace quickened. The snow was sparse out here, fresh and crunchy. I waved an arm frantically, needlessly, at my friends. They were waiting, and in a matter of minutes I'd be on my way.

I was practically leaping. I took two long strides, only to sense a shadow in my peripheral vision and feel a grip on my upper arm, tight and sure. And then a voice.

"Oh, no you don't. Not a chance."

And just like that, I knew I wouldn't reach that car. The window of opportunity was closing. I slammed it shut myself, melting back into the grip that turned into an embrace, sinking into the velvety warm honey tea of that voice that turned into a vibration against my skin. Any resolve I'd pretended to have crumbled away. Because it was him. And as long as he was near me, I was helpless. I needed him. I needed him. As I felt the heaviness of my body fall away, absorbed into his capable arms, that single thought consumed me: finally, finally, I needed him.


	26. Chapter 25: His Turn

**AN:** at bottom this time.  
**Playlist: I Found a Reason by Cat Power** (link on my profile page).

**Chapter 25: His Turn**

***EPOV***

I didn't know what it was about an axe handle that felt comforting in my hands. Well, not just any axe—Carlisle's axe. It felt balanced and strong. He kept the blade in good repair, and I was used to it. The oak was worn smooth from sweat and grit, from the constant controlled slip of hands in motion. My father's hands. Jasper's. Mine. Rosalie's, even.

It was the sort of beautiful object that was hard for an artist to contemplate, because there's no hope of replicating it; it would literally take decades. So, when I picked it up on Saturday morning, I didn't contemplate it. I swung it. I used it. I relished that satisfying _crack_ sound when I split a log. And then I did it again.

As it always did, the physical work helped clear my disorganized thoughts, and the repetition invited a new chorus of the mantra that hadn't quite left my head since I'd connected with Bella at the edge of the parking lot yesterday afternoon.

_Finally. _

Crack.

_Finally. _

Crack.

Of all the reactions cycling through my mind when I realized just how distraught she was, this particular one was simultaneously the most confusing and the most correct. I felt relief.

When I'd glimpsed her slinking toward the exit, I knew instantly something had happened. I saw it in the stiff, clenched way she held her shoulder, of all things. Without even seeing her face, I knew from her posture something was terribly wrong. She didn't look for me, either. That gave me a chill; it was giving me a chill now, remembering it.

Crack.

Crack.

My first thought, incredibly, was that I'd somehow used the wrong audio track—that I'd used the one I promised was just between us. Her heartbeat racing as I kissed her.

But then I came to my senses, and I saw my own work as she might have seen it. Hadn't I just been talking with her about the reactions that were commonplace when grieving a major loss—the denial, the bargaining? I had forgotten about the most universal of them all: the pain. Except I hadn't forgotten about it. I'd made a sculpture about it. The whole time, I thought I'd been expressing _my_ pain, _my_ shock. Well, it was hers, too. It belonged to anybody who's ever had someone torn away from them.

Could my ego get any bigger? I didn't know what was worse: making a sculpture that was a monument to my own private grief or imagining I'd somehow captured the essence of Grief with a capital _G_.

Crack.

Crack.

Crack.

There was recovery there, too, but not right away. Not where she would have been standing. I'd been so focused on the last of the three pieces, the one I'd made for Bella—for, about, because of—that I hadn't given a moment's thought to how this middle piece would affect her.

This was how: it made her run. And her running made me follow.

Moments later, she was nearly hysterical, curled up in a fetal position on the back seat of that Prius, soaking my jeans with her tears. And all I could think was _finally_. I shouldn't have felt relief. And yet…this had been coming for weeks. Months, even.

I remembered asking Peter to drive us to my parents' vacant house, giving him directions. I remembered sending various texts to Aro, to Alice. My leaving abruptly was par for the course, really. If anything, it would only reinforce my reputation. _There he goes again_. The mercurial E.M. Cullen. Let them wonder.

Bella's head in my lap was heavy. A part of me wanted to go nuts demanding explanations, reassurances, anything. But a stronger part of me saw she was in full-on meltdown mode, so I mentally gathered up my more wayward impulses and corralled them off to the side. _We'll get to you later_. I concentrated on clearing the hair away from her puffy face. A mixture of snot and tears was collecting under her nose, making her breathing sputter. I didn't like that. Not seeing anything within eyeshot that looked like a tissue, I used my sleeve to wipe away the excess.

Crack.

Crack.

I wedged the axe into the stump for a moment and pushed my hair out of my face.

I was a little bit baffled, sure. And I had a feeling I might not be so happy with what was really going on in her head, when we got down to it. But for now, I felt relief. At least there was something to get down to.

I thought back to the way she had gripped my hand so tightly in the back of that car. At least she wasn't unconscious. I flashed even further back to that morning in September—was that really just four months ago?—riding in Clearwater's only ambulance, and the sickening feeling of her clammy, limp hand in my uncertain one. The rush I felt when she squeezed my hand that day.

Everything had changed, of course. And not in any of the ways that my imagination had pressed on me that morning. I'd been unprepared then. Uninformed. Unconfident. But this, now: _finally_. I felt ready, at least. I felt able.

I picked up the axe again and resumed hacking away, recalling the rest of our car trip back to the house.

"_Pull in here. Yeah, just ahead. Right here."_

_I handed Charlotte my key ring as Peter angled the seat forward and helped me ease Bella out of the back of the compact car. She seemed dazed, but she could stand. She clenched my shirt in a vice-like grip. I shuffled her toward the door Charlotte had unlocked._

"_Where are we?"_

"_We're at my parents' house. It was nearby, and there's more…room here."_

_There wasn't any point in going into a deeper explanation. She was barely tracking on what I said, as it was. I pulled her into my lap on the couch, and she burrowed into my chest in a way she'd never done before, clinging like a monkey._

_I could see Charlotte moving around in the kitchen, adjusting the thermostat upward from the 'conserve' setting where Carlisle and Esme had apparently left it. She brought out a proper box of Kleenex from the bathroom, and I urged Bella to blow her nose. _

"_Do you want us to stay, Edward? We can." Peter was calm. Soft-spoken and serious._

"_You're welcome to, if you'd rather wait until morning to get on the road."_

"_I mean, you don't think she really wants…to go?" He looked at me and frowned._

_I looked at Bella. She glanced at me through her swollen eyelids with a sheepish expression. She was embarrassed._

"_No, Pete. I don't. I never thought it for a second."_

_Her body relaxed in my arms just the slightest amount._

_Then Peter and Charlotte had said their goodbyes, and I had taken Bella up to my old room. I would have said this was harder than I'd ever seen her cry, but the truth was I'd barely seen her cry at all before now. I'd seen tears spill out of her eyes a few times, sure. But this was different. These were big, shuddering, hiccupping sobs. She made my ribcage ache in more ways than one. Every once in a while, she tried to talk._

"_I'm sorry." _

"_Don't be sorry. This is how it works."_

"_This is the worst timing. I mean, you should—"_

"_Shh. It's the perfect time. Your body knows what it needs, and right now you need to cry. You can't schedule grief around what's convenient."_

"_But you should at least be there tonight..." Her fingers played with the collar of my shirt._

"_I'm where I need to be. Do you think I don't know my own priorities?" _

"_You're missing everything. The opening." So stubborn._

"_My work was done last night. The rest is just schmoozing and glad-handing. I'm happy for the excuse, honestly." I tried tightening my squeeze around her body, as if to remind her she was being comforted. See? This feels good. Stop trying to banish me. Not that she would have let me go, in any event. She was still gripping me like she was stuck on with glue. _

"_You don't want to see how people like it?"_

_I bit my tongue for a moment before I answered. She would hear this as a complaint, and that wasn't how I meant it. _

"_I want to see how you like it. Only you." As if on cue, she groaned. Yes, it pained me that she still hadn't seen the best part. But we had time. We would get there. "When you're ready…I want us to go together."_

She had fallen asleep finally. I hadn't—not right away. I'd been up most of the previous night working; I was tired, but it was still barely nightfall. I was too wired up, my mind racing. I'd noticed her distance these past few days but chalked it up to my working so much. I missed her. Even lying there with her in my arms, I missed her. I wanted her to stop hurting, and I wanted my Bella back. The fighter, the sweetly honest truth-teller, the one who knew what she wanted and asked for it.

After a fitful night, here I was working my frustration out on enough wood to last through next winter. By then Rose's baby would be here. Babies needed extra warmth, right? I decided to finish the cord.

It didn't take Alice long to find me out here under the tree house. I looked up from my growing pile of chopped wood to see her sitting at the picnic table. She sipped coffee from one mug and balanced a second on her knee.

"Where is she?"

I nodded my head toward the upstairs window, squinting into the morning light. Growing up, I'd loved having that bedroom. I used to sit in that window and watch my father chop wood.

"Still sleeping?"

I nodded again, turning back to my chore. Alice watched me in silence for a while, eventually lifting the spare mug she was holding and thrusting it toward me as if to say _this is getting cold_. I took it from her and drank.

"Thanks for coming by."

"It's no problem. Jasper came along—he's in the kitchen." She gestured to her iPad on the table between us. "Your review is online."

"What, already?"

"Yeah. It'll be in tomorrow's New York Times, too."

"No shit? Sunday edition? Well, that's very kind of them." Often a short-run installation was long gone before it got any press. I wasn't in this for the press, but the quick turn-around and premium placement meant someone had gone to bat for me, which was a courtesy. I _hoped_ it was a courtesy and not one of Aro's power plays.

I drained the rest of my coffee and began stacking the wood into neat, organized rows on the metal firewood rack. My sister was practically vibrating, her knee was jiggling so hard.

"Edward, it's so good. Will you let me to read it to you?"

I glanced up at the window, but Alice anticipated my objection. "Storm windows are in. Even if she's awake, she won't hear."

"All right. Hit me."

I focused on my orderly stack and the sound of her voice as she started reading aloud.

"_E.M. Cullen's _Life_ is a trio of profoundly moving installations that, together, are a meditation on light—direct, ambient, refracted—in winter. Inside a cluster of abandoned grain warehouses, Cullen has answered questions about his three years of creative silence (or the appearance of silence) with evidence of tremendous growth_.

"_The first thing viewers will notice is that the installation is situated_ _just this side of unreachable. Those with the inclination to travel to this remote outpost in the dead of winter will be rewarded—and may just feel compelled to return at all hours of night and day. Others should look forward to this gifted artist's future works_."

I smiled in spite of myself. Guess I wasn't all washed up.

"_The first of the three, _Life/Gestation (Esme)_, is a reprisal and expansion of the 2004 _Gestation I (Esme)_—a work that, for all its raw power, appears to have been an exercise. These many years later, the piece is reconfigured with newfound maturity and a compassionate eye. The earlier work's prominent form—the hollow, dangling icy orb—makes a return in this new expression, but that form is outnumbered by other more weighty orbs that are revealed, spectacularly, lovingly, to be the opposite of hollow. As drops of water trickle from stalactites of ice in this time-based installation, white planets and bulbous growths of various sizes lose their outer shells to reveal glowing cores. Eventually, ice will give way to geodes of pigment-saturated glass, crystals dancing with the sun's rays and painting the room in shocking refractions of color. The process unfolds at an excruciatingly slow pace, and that's the point. The catalyst here, and in the two companion installations, is light—which is also heat, and shorthand for love_."

Alice shot me a meaningful look, but I shook my head. I knew she wanted to gush all over the place about our mom, but I couldn't get into that with her—not right now. She turned back to her iPad, scrolling down.

"_Sunlight's metaphorical opposite is invoked _in Life/Survival_, the brutally exposed second piece_." She paused, eying me warily.

Fuck. _Brutally exposed_. For the hundredth time, I wanted to kick myself for letting Bella wander into that so unsuspecting.

Alice cleared her throat and continued. "_Here, a thick and dense field of eight-feet tall jagged peaks of fabric-covered wood, shorn hard plastic, crudely welded metal, and torn paper—all bearing the same blood-red shade of translucent lacquer—create a narrow and claustrophobic canyon of larger-than-life daggers. They point upward this time. The high walls of the cavernous rectangular space give way abruptly to thin air and an impossibly high ceiling of sky, boxing a viewer in but also offering infinite respite. One only need look up. A soundtrack of low, resonant heartbeats urges an organic, corporeal interpretation. Previous iterations of this piece, which were displayed in 2002 and briefly in 2007, were closed in by low ceilings. They incorporated soundtracks alternating between one loud heartbeat and abrupt silence, shocking viewers with a raw invocation of the pain of loss; here, the experience is tempered by the introduction of multiple, distant heartbeats—an insistent drumbeat of the surviving Self and Others. It is a meditation on survival as an imperative rather than_—"

Alice's voice wavered, and she coughed to cover up a sob. She carried on reading in a stage whisper. I stopped what I was doing and sat next to her.

"…_an imperative rather than a slow torture to be endured. Here, the sky is framed as a comforting counterpart to suffering: eternal, immovable beauty. Over time, sun and snow will soften the blood-red canyons of densely packed jagged peaks, reducing the paper elements to pulp, fading the vivid colors but leaving other severe forms untouched: monuments of real grief. Viewed during the day, the peaks cast long slanted shadows across one another, changing with the sun's movement, forming organically rhythmic zigzags to match the beating-heart soundtrack. Viewed at night, still and glowing under the moon, they are not so much knives as divining rods for the stars_."

Alice rested the tablet on her knees. "I love this piece, Edward. This new version—it shows me that you haven't felt alone this whole time."

"It's not just about Tanya, you know." I looked at her. "In 2007, it was. But the first sketch, in 2002, it was about a dream I had...Edward and Elizabeth. And this time I found myself thinking about Harry and his family, and all of you. And now Bella…I wish I would have walked her through it ahead of time, when we were alone."

"Probably, yeah. But this was a fluke of timing. She's going to love it when she sees the whole thing."

"God, there were even moments when I was reading her journals…" My head snapped up. "She gave me her journals. She asked me to read them."

Alice nodded.

"Well, there were some lines that gave me that déjà vu feeling, you know? Like I was reminded of something universal that I'd felt, too: this visceral sensation of being trapped in your own body, having no way to dull the pain. And now I've gone and reflected it back to her without even so much as a warning."

"I think we all thought she was past that stage, you know?"

I did know. I mean, she had written about going through it. But I knew it was normal to circle back again and again, too. "Those stages aren't really sequential, Al. Nothing's predictable."

"Should I read on? This is the really good part. Are you sure you don't want Bella to hear this?"

I shook my head. "I want her to see it. Firsthand." I bowed my head down, staring at the dirt between my feet, and listened to her voice.

"_The installation completing the series is the only completely new work. In another tall, hollow silo, _Life/Joy (Bella) _is lyrical, delicately emotional, and unabashedly sensual_. _The jagged, sharp, and pointed forms seen in _Life/Gestation_ and _Life/Survival_ are conspicuously absent here. Where _Life/Gestation_ is all stark, hospital-white, the rounded walls of this space are textured and glowing with champagne-gold tones, redolent with aroma. _Life/Joy_ presents another series of rounded forms suspended in air, this time with a single obvious focal point: a moon-shaped vessel of soft wax washed in warm, diffused sunlight, perched some forty yards above us. It is filled to the brim with a cargo of honey, still and unreachable—for now. A bathtub-sized basin of polished wood sits at ground level, waiting to receive._

"_The smaller wax orbs dangling all around reveal themselves to be counterweights rigged via a system of ropes and pulleys to tip the vessel—gently, gradually—as these counterweights lose their mass. They lose their mass, of course, by melting. And, this being winter, they melt only with help. Sunlight is allowed to stream into the silo through a precisely drawn crevice in the wall, and is refracted by a narrow mirror, not onto the exhibit itself, but onto the viewing gallery. On a recent afternoon, a crowd of people—students, faculty, community members, and at least one arts journalist—were gathered hopefully, filling their lungs with the sultry sweetness of the air, making impromptu use of the reflective surfaces of their watch faces, iPods, and makeup compacts to triangulate and bend the sun's rays back into one concentrated spot. They made slow but determined work of the first of these wax anchors as the artist looked on, deeply affected. Their spontaneous chants of "_joy, joy, joy"_ leaked out into the surrounding spaces, joining the sounds of beating hearts and the drip-drop of melting ice in a winter concert of, yes, life." _

Air left my lungs in a quick burst. Christ, I wanted her to see this. I needed her to see it before she read about it, at least. Alice stood and pulled me to my feet.

"Come on. Jasper is making us all waffles. You can bring her a plate and go from there."

~.~.~.~.~.~

I found Bella propped up in bed, her hair tied back with one of those bands she always carried. I gave her the plate Alice had fixed and then took a seat on the wooden chair facing the bed. I was struck by the similarities, again—and the differences, again—comparing this moment to that morning in her hospital room back in September. How lost that person was, that version of myself…what a stranger he is to me now. And Bella. How steadily she looked at me, how full of curiosity and courage, then and now.

She crunched into the waffle. "Who's here?"

"Well, it was just Alice and Jasper, but now Rose and Em are here."

"Really?"

"Um, yeah. Sam and the rest are on their way."

"Who, Emily and Leah?"

"And Sue and Seth." I had considered asking everyone to delay coming over, but then I decided Bella could tell me if she wanted to see everyone or not. It was a big enough house that we could easily stay sequestered. "Everybody's working on a project for Mom and Dad's anniversary. A surprise for them. It's their thirtieth."

Maybe it was the waffle or maybe the ambient noise of happy activity filtering through from downstairs, but Bella seemed to brighten a bit. No time like the present.

"I'm sorry I didn't think to caution you about that installation. I should have previewed it with you."

She winced. "God, I'm embarrassed. It's not your fault. I just panicked. I mean, I guess I can see now that I was barely holding it together, all through the end of the semester and the holidays...and now that I have a bit of breathing room, everything started to feel a little less in control, so it was only a matter of time..."

I nodded. That was fine. That part I understood. I tipped my head back to rest against the wall. It occurred to me, and not for the first time in my life, how inadequate the word _love_ was. I knew she loved me. I knew she knew I loved her. But how can you really know a thing when it changes and grows all the time—even…or mostly… after it's established between two people? It was very likely one of the reasons I started making art in the first place. To understand love.

"Do you think you can tell me why you...," I coughed and cleared my throat, "why you felt the need to run?"

"I, uh…Edward, I can't…"

"You don't need to choose your words with me. Just blurt it out. Trust me to understand."

"I wasn't thinking clearly. I was all mixed up, and…and I thought that…well, I'm used to being alone, and I thought…" She shook her head, setting her empty plate on the dresser beside her and reached for a handful of tissues.

There was something she couldn't bring herself to tell me. I tried a new approach.

"But why was _that_ the thing you did? Running from your problems isn't like you. What was going through your mind?" This was the part that had been eating at me. I remembered a time when she talked to me about intimacy, about consenting to let someone know you—every part of you. Well, you could also make the opposite decision. It shook me to the core to think she might have done that.

"I guess I didn't think I was running from a problem…I thought I was taking my problem and bringing it with me. Actually, I am the problem. I have issues, Edward. I need help. You said it yourself."

"Yeah, and did you ever think you could need help from me? Because I'm prepared to give it." That was putting it mildly. I needed to give it like I needed air to breathe. It was a struggle to keep my face composed.

She pulled her knees up to her chest and stared at the tissue in her hands, which was now in shreds. She began rolling the scraps in her fingers, squishing them into compact little wads. "Listen, I can see that you're upset with me. Look at what a mess I'm making of your life—now that you finally have a chance to be healthy and free. And happy. This isn't the way it's supposed to be."

"A _chance_ to be happy? The way it's _supposed_ to be?" What was she even talking about? I was already happier than I'd ever been in my life. She was blowing this out of proportion. It was like she had a foregone conclusion all worked out in her head, a scenario where…oh, Jesus. My heart was beginning to pound a bit. I recognized this non-logical logic, because I had tried it out myself, once.

I dragged my chair closer to the bed and put my hand on hers. This was going to be tough. "Oh, Bella. I see what this is, and…it doesn't work that way. I'm not her, babe. It doesn't work that way."

"What do you mean? Who?" She tried to yank her hand away, and I clamped down on her fingers, flattening her hand between my palms.

"I mean Renee, sweetheart. Your mom." I pulled her hand up to my mouth, her palm still sandwiched between mine, pressing her knuckles to my lips. "She never got the chance to be healthy and free, despite all you did. It wasn't neat and clean when you lost her, and it hurt worse because of it. It still hurts so much, I know that. Don't you see? You've got me all lined up to make a trade with the universe."

Fuck, I hated to see her cry. I hated making her cry. But she was listening to me—really hearing me. And, goddammit, that meant I was right. It meant she was hurting a lot, if this was where her head was.

"You think if you fix me up instead, tie up the loose ends—and this time it works like gangbusters—then maybe you can let me go, and you'll stop hurting so much? You swoop in and heal me and then give me up, like some sort of penance? Oh, honey." By now I had climbed up into the bed and bundled her into my arms, her back flush against my chest. I absorbed the little shivers passing through her.

"That's not what I was doing." Her voice was entirely unconvincing. "Not consciously."

Her body stiffened, and her voice grew quiet, eerily controlled. "Maybe it is what I think. I deserve to suffer. I…I never told you…"

"Tell me now. Just get it out." I closed my eyes and bent my head to touch the nape of her neck.

"I never told you I wished for my mother to die quicker than she did. I couldn't stand seeing her lying there, immune to everything I said to her, every touch. And I…I was so angry that she let me have a hand in this operation that killed her, even though I would have hated if she tried to stop me, too. I hated her for being weak and reversing her DNR, and I hated her for ever smoking in the first place, and I loved her for wanting just a little more time, but in the end I was so scared, and I had doubt in my heart every minute until I went under the anesthesia. I think maybe that got into her veins somehow, you know?" She was making these weird dry sobs, quivering without really crying. "And most of all I resent her for leaving me _twice_. I still feel it. It wasn't sickness that made her go that first time, it was her choice. Th—there. Is that the person you thought I was?"

"Shh." I wasn't about to tell her it was like she was quoting verbatim from the grief recovery textbook. Trying to locate a source for this pain, trying to take the blame herself when there was nowhere else to put it. "You're just a person who feels everything, even if it's confusing. I know it's complicated. I know it hurts."

I burrowed my face into her neck. I felt the delicate chain of her locket, and I groped for the cool metal with my fingers. "It doesn't matter, because it isn't going to work that way. I won't let you run without a better reason than that, and I won't let you drive me away. Don't forget; I tried to do what you're doing, you know. Punish myself. Bargain with the universe. It didn't help. Nothing helped until someone came along and looked me in the eye and made me want to pull myself up out of that pit."

And just like that, she rolled her head up to look me in the eye like she always did, stirring something in me like it always did. She always, always revealed herself in these quiet little moments, and I always felt it in my gut. I saw more self-doubt there than I was used to, but I knew it wasn't permanent. Just a slight disturbance, just temporary. I wanted to wipe it out of her eyes like a speck of dust.

"You don't owe me anything, Edward. I've been hiding my…I don't know, weakness from you this whole time; you didn't realize what you were getting yourself into."

"Would you please just stop being ridiculous—"

"I'm not. I understand if you feel differently, now that you've got both feet back in the world again. I was the one person with access to something you needed, and I jumped at the chance to do it. And now it's done. Don't put up with me out of obligation just because I helped you discover those letters."

I blinked at her. For a minute I was confused about what letters she meant. And then I sat up straight, seeing clearly for the first time what she was telling herself was happening here. "Those letters? Is that what you think?"

"But—"

"You think I'm healthy and happy now because of letters and information? Because the record has been set straight?"

I wrapped my hands around her clenched-together fingers, climbing over her lap to face her directly, on my knees in front of her.

"Bella, I'm myself again because you believed in me. That's all. That's all, and that's everything. You believed in me from the first day I saw you, when you looked me in the eye like you were really seeing me. You trusted me with the code to your office—you didn't think twice. You got into a truck with me on that rainy night, after meeting me once in your life. You made me feel just the tiniest bit useful. You drank tea with me and talked with me about something real, something important to you. You have no idea how starved I was for that. Then you looked at me like you wouldn't mind it if I kissed you, and…you really, really didn't mind it when I kissed you. You showed me I was right, again and again—every day. Don't you see? You taught me to trust my instincts again."

God, I was so fucking sure about all of this. Talk about feeling healthy and free. Nothing had ever been more obvious to me in my life, and that was a fucking freeing feeling.

"Baby, of everything I lost that night on the bridge, I could let go of all of it—even her, God help me—but I thought I would never trust myself again. That was what I lost that night. I lost myself. I thought my instincts were for shit, that I was totally wrong about people and always had been. But I was never wrong about you." I felt my vision go blurry and my cheeks pull up into a smile, remembering the ways my confidence came back to me. The ways she gave it to me.

"You probably don't even remember all the little times I looked to you to see what you were thinking and found you looking right at me, believing in me, reassuring me. Just a little smile, just the way you would nod at me….that was love, Bella. All along. You…you've loved me this whole time.

Her face was stoic, her eyes wide and searching.

"You talk about me finally being happy? The greatest joy in my life is to be strong for you right now. A year ago, yes, I would have turned on my heel and run out of here. But you love me now, and I'm three times the man I ever was, and I'm who I need to be for you."

Since this was already the longest speech of my life, I decided I might as well keep babbling. She was smiling now, at least.

"That quilt of my mom's downstairs…I finally understand it. I really understand it. The more I live up to your image of me, the deeper I dig to be who you think I can be, the more I'm capable of. It really does make me stronger, the more I love you. But you've got to let me do it. Even now that it finally feels hard for you.

Her hands were in my hair again. Her thumb was at the back of my ear. Oh, I missed that.

"It's never going to be too much for me—I know that now. It's my turn to tell you how strong you are, and just love the fuck out of you as hard as I can, and it's your turn to just let it sink in, for I don't care how long. We're gonna get Eleazar on board, or whoever you want, and all this normal, natural grief you feel will come pouring out of you for however long, and that's just what's gonna happen. So get used to it."

I would have gone on. I could have gone on. I had a million more things to say, but I felt her hand pressed against my mouth.

"Cullen."

I pulled my eyebrows up.

"Stop talking."

I made a noise I hoped wasn't talking but sounded like saying yes. And then her hand slipped away and before I could go back on my word, her lips were on mine—her lips. Oh, this had a way of scrambling my thoughts. Every single fucking time. Her lips were just so soft and gentle and persistent and _hers_. They slipped and pried me and plied me, and I started to forget what words were for anyhow. I never grunted on purpose, but every time I did it, she kissed me harder, and every time I remembered all over again how much she seemed to like that, and then it was all beyond whatever, because teeth and tongues and throat and cheekbones—earlobes, temples, don't forget eyelids, eyelashes—were all available and right here, and goddammit if Picasso wasn't onto something with those crazy mixed-up portraits of his, all noses and profiles and everything jumbled. She could never know what a simpleton I became when I was kissing her. Good thing my mouth was occupied. Maple syrup. Oh, right—the waffle. And salt. Fucking tears.

"Baby."

My head shot up.

"Is the door locked?"

The room spun. That door didn't have a lock.

But this had been my room when I was a teenage boy, and a teenage boy with a door that doesn't lock tends to devise work-arounds. I reached for the wooden chair I had been sitting on earlier. I spun it, lined it up, shoved it hard across the hardwood floorboards, and watched it slip under the doorknob. I still had the touch.

Things became a little blurry after that.

There were breasts involved, smooth and soft. Bare knees. Her hair came loose; then when everything was really sweaty, it got tied back again. She left her locket on. I liked that. My socks were on, then they weren't. The bottom ridge of her ribcage prickled into goose bumps under my tongue. Her little shoulder blade—a wing. Her belly button. I was shuddering and shaking, and she needed help with that elastic waistband there, and she was—ohmygod inside of her, I was inside of her. And then I miraculously remembered where she like to be touched when we were like this, and that made her arch her back like holy Christ, what in fuck? I remember thinking: _fast, I hope fast is okay._ I needed _fast_. I must have said it out loud because she was nodding_ yes_. And then I maybe even said_ hurry,_ and that was rude, but she didn't seem to be all that bothered, because the next thing I knew, she was coming and pressing her noisy mouth against my collarbone, pulsing around me, so good; nothing was like that, and her face—her face. _That's the signal. What are you waiting for?_ I needed those eyes locked into mine when I did stop holding back, when I poured out everything unsaid and unsayable in one long, unbearably satisfying release. Every time. Oh, God.

I lay there for a long time, regaining my faculties, resting, feeling her cool, sweat-damp hair under my hands. The sun was beginning to stream in through the windows, telling me it was almost noon.

Bella was awake. Her voice, quiet as it was, startled me.

"I remember when you took me to the dandelion oak tree that night."

I tightened my arms, pulling her closer against my chest. God, I wanted her to remember that night the way I remembered it. "Yeah?"

"That was the night you came home from Minneapolis. Remember how long you were stuck in traffic? All your text messages?"

I nodded into her hair. I was afraid to speak, for some reason.

"You said it was the night you came home to me."

"That's right." Jesus. This was what relief felt like. I gulped down air, filling and emptying my lungs with a deep sigh.

"You really meant it. It wasn't about her then."

"No."

"It isn't about her now. It never has been."

"Never."

"You meant it—_home_—and I made you a promise to remember it like that, and I did. I meant it, too. And I'm so glad."

"I'm right here with you. Wherever you are. No matter what."

It was only the beginning. Every time I thought I couldn't love her more, I did, and then it was only the beginning all over again. A person could get used to this. A person did.

~.~.~.~.~.~

**AN:** I just want to say thank you again to all of you for reading, responding, reviewing, alerting, recommending, and mostly just enjoying this story along with me! I feel bad about not being more interactive all along, but I'm pretty shy and I find it almost impossible to talk about my writing while I'm writing it. I am amazed and impressed by how generous **happymelt**, **faireyfan**, and **midsouthmama** have been with their advice and knowledge of grammar when acting as beta and prereaders, even though I sometimes insist on letting letting Edward make up words like "unconfident." I tinkered after they last saw this, so any remaining issues are mine to own. These ladies also tip me off to great stories like **Firefly in Summer** by primarycolors and **SOUL** by denverpopcorn, which you should try if you aren't already! We've got one chapter left and then a short epi. See you next time!


	27. Chapter 26: A Life

**Playlist: **Take it With Me by Tom Waits (linked on my profile)**  
AN: **At the end!

**~.~.~.~.~.~**

**Chapter 26: A Life**

My breath fogged up the small rounded window of the plane as I watched the landscape scroll past. The acres and acres of farmland covered with snow or winter-brown vegetation looked like postage stamps from this vantage point, crisscrossed by long skinny roads. It was cold up here at 40,000 feet, and I was dressed for the desert. I still had my winter coat, which I had draped over my chest like a blanket. The droning whir of the engines combined with the monotonous scenery below put me in a reflective mood, and I mentally revisited the weekend of Edward's opening.

What had begun with so much chaos and blind-siding, embarrassing emotional turmoil had resolved into just another Cullen family weekend, somehow. Well, not "somehow"—with Edward's help. And that wasn't all. Jesus.

I had woken up the morning after his opening remembering little other than flashes—the white light of his first installation, something red and pulsing from the second one, my feet crunching through the sparse snow, Charlotte with a tissue box. Most of all, I remembered the feeling of his arms around me. Strong. Unwavering.

There were odd, old memories, too, fresh in my mind for the first time in the space of a year. Different conversations with my mom. The expressions on her face, how the tone of her voice changed.

My clothes still smelled like Edward—at least, that was what I thought at first. Then I realized it wasn't even my clothes; I was clutching the tee-shirt he'd been wearing, and I wondered how he had come to leave it there for me. I had a vague memory of feeling the fabric twisted around my fingers.

I looked around the room and got my bearings. I peeked out the window and saw Edward sitting at the picnic table next to Alice, talking, bouncing a mug of coffee on his knee. Split logs were piled in a jumble on the ground, their clean, raw-looking insides exposed to the air. The rhythmic thumping noise that roused me must have been Edward chopping, I decided. I had a strange feeling at the time, like if I stepped off the bed I wouldn't find any floor beneath me. Like my feet might crumble into dust if I put any weight on them. As uncertain as I felt, I also felt curiously at peace, because Edward's presence and reliability were so palpable, even when he wasn't in the room. For the first time in a long time, I wasn't obsessing over all the possible eventualities and how to prepare myself.

When he knocked and entered the room carrying a plate piled with waffles, I was content to eat, and listen, and absorb. More than the things he said to me that day, I was swayed by the confidence radiating out from him, the absolute certainty he projected even as he made me confront my issues. Every part of his body reassured me: his words, his hands, his lips, the fire in his eyes. He saw what I needed and held nothing back.

I recalled something Miss Ida had said to me one afternoon in the bar. I must have been twelve or so. _It's one thing to know what a person needs. It's another thing to be able to give it_. She'd been talking to me about Charlie, helping me understand how hard it was for him to show affection. I'd eventually learned to live without it, to just trust he felt it in his heart even though he couldn't outwardly show it. But this, from Edward—he dished it out in spades. Like he was born to do it.

Esme had tried to tell me. _This is the most natural thing in the world for him. Opening his heart like this_. He'd told me himself. _We'll be all right, you and me. You know that, right?_ Well, I hadn't really known. I knew now.

Something soft fell onto my lap, distracting me from my reminiscing. A wool sweater. I turned my head to see Edward standing in the aisle, only his torso visible. He was arms-deep in the overhead bin.

"Avoid the front bathroom, if you can help it." He rummaged, unzipping and zipping something up above. "That turbulence we hit a while back seems to have caused a bit of a hazmat situation."

"Gross. What are you looking for?"

"My keys. Are they in your satchel?"

"No—remember, we put them in the checked luggage because your Swiss army knife is on there. Why, what do you need?"

"Oh, right." He closed the bin with a soft click and took his seat next to me. "I have a hangnail or whatever. I was looking for the file."

I chuckled at him. "That's not a nail file; that's a metal file, and it's too coarse for your nails."

"Pfft. I'm not trying to win a beauty pageant."

I dug into the satchel under my seat and pulled out a few things—a tube of antibacterial gel, which I handed to Edward; my own keys; my Moleskine notebook—before laying my hands on an emery board.

"Well, you might just try to touch my delicate skin with those manly hands of yours. I know you don't want to scratch me."

"Oh." He sank back into his seat and extended his index finger toward me, inviting me to smooth out the broken edge of his nail. "Good. That's nice."

"Thanks for this." I set my coat aside so I could add Edward's sweater on top of my long-sleeved tee.

"Need some help putting it on? Maybe put your handiwork to the test?" He wiggled his fingers.

I couldn't help my snicker. "I think I can manage."

He settled back into his seat and began thumbing through a magazine he'd already read.

"Edward." I put my hand on his knee.

"Hmmm?"

"Help me. I'm nervous."

He shoved the magazine into the seat back pocket and looked over at me. "You name it. Talk to me."

"Well, what if it's time to make my speech, and I can't do it? What if I start crying?" I twisted in my seat to face him, and he mirrored me.

"What, in front of a dozen people who love you, who are probably also crying? It's nothing to be embarrassed about."

"I just don't like not knowing how I'll feel."

He wove his fingers through mine and met my eye. "I'll tell you what. You are going to cry. At least a little bit. I'm sure of it. I would be more worried if you didn't."

"Should I try to keep reading, just power through it? I want people to hear my words."

"I know. You worked hard on this." He worked his hand up inside my sleeve, warming me, pressing his forearm against mine. "Well, there are a couple of options. If you don't feel like it's going how you want, you can just give me a signal, and I can read it. Or maybe your self-relaxation stuff will help."

This was what I had been working on with Eleazar in our first couple of meetings: ways of being more aware of how I was feeling and processing my reactions without letting them spiral out of control. I knew it was very different from the things Edward and Carmen talked about; Edward needed no help getting in touch with his emotions.

"Have you picked out your peaceful hallucination yet?"

"It's not a hallucination—it's a visualization." I giggled. "And…no. Not yet."

"But you have some options?"

I had narrowed it down. Looking at him now, though, I felt as though my options were increasing every moment.

"I think I'm in pretty good shape there, yeah."

"Practice with me. Close your eyes."

Now, I understood that most people visualized the calm surface of a lake or a field of grain waving in the wind. Nothing like that came naturally to me. Instead, I was recalling moments with people. Edward, mostly. I let my eyes drift closed. "It helps that we looked at all those pictures the other day at Ma and Pa's house."

I had come downstairs from his room, steeling myself for an uncomfortable onslaught of attention from the half-dozen people who had gathered there while I slept. Instead, I was quickly enlisted in a photo-album assembly project that involved piles and boxes spread across three tables and two rooms—a visual record of Carlisle and Esme's thirty-year life together. The good and the bad.

"Yeah? You're thinking of one of those pictures? Which one? Me with braces eating corn on the cob?"

"That's a good one, but no. Thinking of the ones I actually was there for. Or the days they reminded me of. The Indian Summer bonfire, for instance. Falling asleep under the stars. Or camping."

"Oh, camping. When we never found those blueberries. Wait, that's my peaceful visualization. Don't tell me we both have the same one."

I cracked up. "No, believe it or not. As much fun as it was doing _that_, visualizing it won't calm me down."

"It's your self-flustering visualization."

"Sure, okay."

"Shit, it really is. You're blushing."

I snapped my eyes open. The way he was gazing at me was unnerving. "Cheater. I thought we were closing our eyes."

"I can't help it. You're adorable." His face broke into a dazzling grin. "Swan, do you know something?"

"What?"

"You referred to Esme and Carlisle as Ma and Pa just now."

"I did?" I'd heard Rose and Emmett call them this, and they seemed to like it. If I had said it, I'd done it without thinking.

"Yeah. Come here." He wrapped me in a tight airplane-seat hug, twisting his body and threading his long limbs through mine.

~.~.~.~.~.~

By the time we pulled up to our hotel in Phoenix, the sun was low in the sky. I wanted Edward to see the mountains in that light, so I rushed us through the check-in process, not even pausing to giggle when the reception clerk, seeing the reservation under my name, called Edward "Mr. Swan". I may have cracked a smile. It was his own fault for dazzling the poor girl with his charm.

When we were a safe distance from the desk, I poked him in the ribs. "Do you think you laid it on a little thick there, Mr. Swan?"

"I got us an upgrade, didn't I?" He peered at me from the corner of his eye, smirking. "Anyhow, I don't see what's so funny. Maybe I _should_ change my name."

"Yeah, why not? Who says only women should change their names?"

"I've changed it before, you know. Carlisle and Esme let me choose."

"They did?" I fiddled with the old-fashioned key, unlocking the door to our casita. I registered a slight feeling of surprise at how much this discussion _wasn't_ making me nervous.

"Yeah. I mean, I was only four, but I remember thinking I wanted to have the same name as them." He dropped our bags and pulled me into his arms. "Come on, we have a sunset to gawk at. Let's table these negotiations for another time."

~.~.~.~.~.~

I woke up before the sunrise the next morning. Renee's birthday. I sat on the patio just outside our casita with a cup of coffee and watched the light touch the tips of the mountainside, gradually working its way down. I made a mental note to wake Edward up early the next day so he could see this. For now, it was nice to sit alone with my thoughts, and he was sleeping so comfortably. I was thinking of our drive to the airport. Or, more accurately, the stops we made on the way.

The first was a quick one: the dandelion oak tree. We made the decision on the spur of the moment, which felt right; it was a thrill to realize carving our initials into the tree was as ordinary and inevitable as waking up and eating breakfast that day. Edward caught a tiny curl of hardwood before it floated to the ground. He secured it between the two halves of my locket. Then he kissed me.

"Come on. I've waited long enough. There's an installation with your name on it somewhere around here."

We stopped in at the _Gestation (Esme)_ installation first, and I was delighted to see the riotous play of colors and light that had emerged with the melting of all the ice cocoons. There was something sharp and solid about these bright prisms—as beautiful as they were, there was nothing fragile about them, nothing delicate. Edward tugged me out the door, past the still-foreboding middle installation, saying _later_.

When we reached the far silo, I saw my name next to _Life/Joy_ on the placard and blinked in surprise. I walked through the doorway to be overwhelmed with sensations that were somehow intense and soft at the same time: the aroma of wax and something sweet—Maple syrup? Honey?—and a column of golden light flowing all around the silo and the rounded shapes hanging heavily from the ceiling.

Eric Yorkie was there with a camera. A smattering of strangers turned their heads when we walked in. _What were they doing?_ I gradually worked out what was happening with the reflected rays of sunlight, the piles of melted wax on the ground that seemed to have dripped from ropes up above, and the huge sphere-shaped container of honey that was inching closer and closer to overturning into a massive wooden basin near my feet. I understood then why Edward had been so particular about the timing of our flight to Phoenix and so anxious when the forecast briefly indicated cloud cover.

I didn't try to make sense of my feelings—my heart beating in my ears, the warm rush of pleasant aching in my chest. I just leaned into Edward's arms and felt his smiling lips press into my head. As rich and beautiful as this place was, as much as I was taken aback by what felt like a depiction of messy, unruly, over-the-top joy, I was also gripped by a sudden sadness for Edward's years of isolation and self-doubt.

I turned to face him. His expression was a version of one I'd seen dozens of times: pure delight and gleeful eagerness. _So good_ mixed with _more, please_. It was the way he looked when he tasted a first bite of pie, when he dipped a finger in the buttery syrup on his pancake plate, thinking no one was looking. It was the way he looked when he kissed me.

"Edward."

"Hey, don't cry. This is not a crying occasion." His lips brushed the corners of my eyes, first one and then the other.

"I'm not. I know. I just…I love that this is how joy feels to you. I wish you could have felt it all your life."

"It's how you make me feel." He clenched my hands in his and rested his forehead on mine. "You make me feel like there's no such thing as too much joy."

"I love it. I love it." I kissed him, my mouth sloppy and quivering. "I love you."

He held me tight and pretended not to notice me drying my tears on his shirt. We made ourselves comfortable. People came and went: Garrett and Kate, a few townspeople I vaguely recognized, the Dean, engineering students with some sort of mirror-and-lens contraption. Edward and I waited and watched. When that big orb finally overturned and sent a shining waterfall of honey cascading down, even with all those people there, with Eric snapping away, the moment felt private and impossibly special; I knew I would never see anything like it again in my life, even as I somehow knew I would _feel_ it—had been feeling it—every single day.

I finished my coffee, feeling restored. I turned to go inside only to find Edward leaning against the door frame, watching me. His eyes were golden-green in the rose-colored morning light. There it was again—that feeling. My joy, my own personal live-streaming feed of sweetness.

~.~.~.~.~.~

Three hours later, Edward held open the door to the community center for me, never letting go of my hand. He leaned down to remind me we could leave at any time if it got to be too much to take; all I needed to do was say the word. I stopped to say hello to a nurse whose name I'd forgotten but turned back to Edward when I heard a familiar voice.

"Edward Cullen?"

"You must be Jacob Black. Good to meet you."

"And this is my father, Billy Black. Hi, Bella."

"Jake—hey. Hi, Billy." I bent down to Billy's wheelchair to give him a stiff hug as soon as Edward finished shaking his hand. "Jake, you cut your hair."

His eyes moved back and forth between Edward and me. He rubbed his shorn head awkwardly. "Yeah. It's much easier this way…with my schedule and all."

"Um, it's nice to see you. How are you doing?"

"I'm good."

He talked to me for a while about his residency program, about my book, about Dr. Call and Dr. Ateara, who had evidently asked the hospital's PR person to give us all some space. Jake congratulated Edward on his recent rave review in the New York Times, and Edward was genuinely gracious. Jake told us about a possible Family Practice job out on the Olympic peninsula, in a small-town community where he could imagine Billy enjoying the quiet life. Edward split off in to a side conversation with Billy on the finer points of such a life, and Jake gave me an update about some paperwork I'd asked him to review.

Charlie arrived, sweeping me into a surprisingly tight hug, and then some friends of Renee's from her nature hiking club and some others from yoga trickled in, and then Phil, who seemed even more taciturn than usual. We nibbled on carrot sticks and miniature sandwiches while we visited, and no one complained when one of the yoga ladies spiked the punch. Edward spent a long time inspecting the poster boards full of snapshots someone had tacked to the wall. Eventually, people settled into their chairs and began taking turns making remarks at the little podium at the front of the room.

And then there was nothing left to do but march up there and say my piece. I decided to ignore those public speaking rules about making eye contact with various people in the crowd, choosing instead to single out Edward in his soft linen suit.

"Thanks, everyone, for being here today." I cleared my throat. "I read something by the poet Mary Oliver that says, 'Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand that this, too, was a gift.' The, um…the darkness part I can relate to." I paused and took a deep breath, listening to the smattering of sympathetic murmurs from the group. Edward was nodding at me from his seat, his lips pinched together in concentration, as if he could project his strength to me from afar. "I still feel like what my mom went through in her last few months is more darkness than anything, but I've finally begun to have faith that…feeling my way through it will do me some good, in the end. Because I know in the end the love I feel will be stronger than this pain."

I closed my eyes and recalled my peaceful frame of mind from this morning on the patio. Another deep breath, then I was wiping tears away, ready to begin again.

"I met a person this year…a whole family, in fact…who showed me that there are infinitely more variations of love than what I thought I knew. I still love Renee, like I know a lot of you do." This wasn't too bad. I was sniffling a bit, but my words were more or less clear. That was the main thing. "And I realized…I realized I can love her by missing her, by forgiving her little flaws, by thinking of her at all those times in my life…those times still to come where I wish she was present. I don't have to mistake those feelings for the opposite of love anymore."

I knew I must have looked like a wreck to make Edward get to his feet and walk toward the podium slowly, buttoning his jacket as he moved. His face was blotchy and his eyes shone with tears, but his jaw was set and determined. I felt some relief instantly when a good part of the group diverted their attention away from me and toward him. He stood next to me and rested a hand on my lower back, calming me.

"Most of all, I can love the choices she made in those last few months. Because I know now that it's a gift to be certain we did everything possible under the sun to keep her alive. She wanted to live. She fought to live." I looked down to see a handkerchief in my hand, without quite remembering Edward handing it to me. I wiped my cheeks. "I spent a long time resenting the fact that she didn't have a peaceful death, that it wasn't as clean and easy as it could have been. But now I understand how much of that struggle toward the end was her spirit coming through when nothing else could—not her consciousness, not her voice."

I gripped the handkerchief with one hand and shuffled papers around with the other, and then I felt Edward's cool skin on mine, his thumbs massaging my knuckles. I looked up to lock my gaze with his. I addressed this last part to him and put the rest of the assembled group out of my mind as I struggled to finish my remarks.

"She loved life, and she raised me to love life, and that's what I will cherish for as long as I have the good luck to stay healthy and alive myself."

He crushed me into his chest then, murmuring into my hair and telling me he was proud of me, which somehow made me cry more, though the ache was different. I hummed in agreement when he asked me if it was all right to read the poem I'd printed out.

"Which one? This?"

He held a paper in front of my eyes, and I nodded against his shoulder. I thought I felt a hiccup of surprise from deep inside his chest when his eyes scanned the page. He faltered at first when he began reading and stopped to swallow back a sudden burst of emotion, coughing. When he resumed reading, his voice was steady and confident, thick with feeling. It was a Dylan Thomas poem, not very long, and I focused on the way the words resonated in Edward's voice as he held me to his chest with one strong arm.

"_Do not go gentle into that good night,  
Old age should burn and rage at close of day;  
Rage, rage against the dying of the light…"_

~.~.~.~.~.~

We stayed up late that night with Phil, Charlie, Billy, and Jake. Carlisle and Esme had sent a basket of fruit and wine to Phil's house, and the bunch of us drained the wine and raided the liquor cabinet for Phil's dusty bottles of Scotch when the wine ran out. Over grapes and hothouse peaches, we all told stories and made each other laugh, and I found myself thinking that this was the way Renee would have wanted to celebrate her birthday—that she would have been happy to witness this scene.

Edward soaked it all up. I saw Charlie watching him from time to time, and I saw the moment when Charlie let down his guard at last, busting out the insiders-only stories of the early days—the days when I was just a baby and he and Renee were barely adults. At some point, I looked at Edward and brightened, thinking about the stories we'd be telling about one another in years to come. He saw me smiling and narrowed his eyes playfully, no doubt accurately guessing my thoughts.

~.~.~.~.~.~

Our small private patio at the hotel had a pair of comfortable lounge chairs where I was determined to soak up as much sun as possible while I had the chance. It felt good to have the milestone of Renee's birthday behind me, and we still had another two days before our flight home. It was in the low seventies, which was warm even for Phoenix at this time of year, and a world of difference from Ohio. I was changing into a two-piece swimsuit when I heard a knock at the door.

"You expecting someone, sweetie pie?" Edward looked up from the newspaper and grinned at my half-dressed state. "Hey. Don't rush, now. Whoever it is can wait."

"Uh, I don't know who it could be." I pulled a robe on and looked toward the door.

"Give me about two seconds to get rid of them."

It was the desk clerk from Friday. She was flustered again. Or still. "Oh, hello, Mr. Swan. I have a delivery for Ms. Swan."

I heard him murmur a gentle correction and a thank you before coming to join me on the patio. The lounge chair shifted slightly under his weight when he settled in behind me.

"We're officially in do-not-disturb mode. And this is for you." He set down a manila envelope and picked up a tube of sunscreen. He started spreading sunscreen across my shoulders and back, dipping his hands under the straps of my swimsuit. He took the opportunity to massage some of the tension out of my muscles.

I pinched the brass closure to open the envelope and slid the papers out. I could hear the resort's automatic sprinkler system click and spurt in the distance while I read. Everything was exactly as I had asked. Edward's hands slowed and then stilled on my back as he read over my shoulder. His body was warm and unmoving behind me; I could feel his breath on my neck. I didn't know what his reaction would be. He abruptly wiped his hands on a towel and began tapping wildly at his phone.

"What are you doing?" I twisted to look at him, then turned completely to face him.

"Deleting him from my speed dial." He dropped the phone and let out a huff of relief, blinking into the sunlight. He turned his head to look at me, all thoughts of Jacob fading fast as his expression softened. He leaned his head closer to mine and gripped my elbows. "This is done? No more power of attorney? No more advance directives?"

I nodded my head. I had withdrawn the provision altogether. I could always reappoint someone later, if I began to have health issues. "No more. Signed, notarized, filed."

"God, I didn't realize how much I hoped for this. I tried not to think about it. I did, but…I wanted this." His lips seemed to move of their own accord, attaching themselves to my neck and collarbone.

I held his head to my chest and felt his arms wrap around my waist. "I wanted it, too. I decided…well, I'm not afraid of just doing things the normal way. So I'll be ruled by my instincts, so what? I'm not afraid of that anymore."

He sat upright again and smiled the weak smile of a person who has no hope of expressing himself fully. He stroked my temple, tucking my hair behind my ears as he went.

"Nothing's going to happen to you, you know. You're as healthy as a horse. And even if anything did happen, you'll have all these people to take care of you."

"And vice versa."

"Right. Vice versa. Oh, Bella." He lay back on the lounger and took me with him, trailing his fingertips along the warm skin of my back. "I want…let's not go back right away."

His fingertips gave way to the palms of his hands, his forearms, every available inch of skin smoothing over mine. There was a strange new breathlessness about him.

"Let's change our flight. I don't want to see a single other person. I've waited so long to really be alone with you without that shadow hanging over us, without all the ghosts. Tell me you feel it, too."

"I do, Edward. I do."

"Let's do it. We don't have anywhere else to be. Just look at you in the sun right now—and your skin is so warm. How long since you felt the sun on your skin?"

I smiled, my decision made, and lifted myself off of him by a few inches, just enough to wrest his shirt off of his torso. I murmured _yes_ again and again without taking my lips away from his scruffy face and got lost in the feeling of his warm skin against my warm skin out here in the open air, in the sunlight and the gentle breeze.

He sucked my thumb into his mouth and moaned and bit down and peeled off my bikini top, and I wet his fingers with my tongue and guided them to my left nipple, crying out softly when he rolled it and nipped at it, and in an instant we were inside with the door closed tight, making more noise and getting more naked and learning the new things that seemed to never stop coming to the surface. His hooded eyes, his gaping mouth when I tugged his hair. A new kind of aching tightness when I stood with one foot on the floor and one knee on the bed, Edward behind me, sweating and noisy. The familiarity of his flat thumbnail pressing into the diagonal of my hipbone, firm and deliberate, his face moving from concentration to slack ecstasy and back again while I rode him.

We opened the sliding glass door wide and let the sunlight pour in all afternoon. He was lying with his head on my stomach, talking with me about our garden, about the new season of True Blood, about which of my boobs was his favorite (after much debate, a tie). I moved a hand to shade his eyes from the sun's rays and realized I was looking at the man I would spend my life with. Not because of how much love I felt—how very much—and not through any sort of mystical intuition, but because I really _knew _him. Knew how to read him, how to talk to him, how to tell him anything and ask him anything. And so I told him that.

~.~.~.~.~.~

We spent two weeks out west that winter, getting dusty and hot in the desert, then salty and hot on the beaches of California—but staying as pale as ever, thanks to Edward's diligence with the sunblock—right up until the start of the new semester called us home. We didn't go back to Arizona again until years later, when we took Riley to look at colleges. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Back at Newcoven, I dug my heels in, published as much as I could, applied for research grants, and secured a tenure-track appointment. Edward and I spent every second or third summer in Chicago, and eventually got Charlie to make regular visits to Clearwater.

One year, Edward won a fellowship in Marfa, Texas, and we spent four months living in an Airstream trailer near the huge complex of installations at old Fort Russell. Soon after that, we spent a spring semester teaching together in Rome and a summer travelling in the sunny hills while contractors back home built a house next to the barn. The following winter when our first daughter was born, we named her Michela, after Michelangelo. Edward called her _miele _sometimes, and _po 'di_ _miele_. Our family grew fast.

Seth had a home with us after Sue's heart problems finally proved too much for her, even though he was practically a man by then. The group of us held Muddywaters for Seth until he was sure he wanted to take it over. It was Seth who brought sixteen-year-old Riley to us after finding him trying to make a meal of saltines and ketchup in a back booth at the café.

Riley wasn't in the foster care system and only needed stable adults in his life and some help covering rent, but we decided to get our foster parenting license anyway. That was when the state brought us Bree, who was eight and an orphan. With advice from Carlisle and Esme, we took steps to adopt her permanently. Since we were at the courthouse so frequently, I figured I might as well let Edward make an honest woman of me, and we got married. We kept it simple, with Jasper and Alice as our witnesses and a picnic at Sam and Emily's farm for a reception.

Our haphazard clan felt perfect to me—our two daughters, our two sort-of sons. I told Eleazar even the ambiguity of our connection to Riley and Seth felt right, because it meant never assuming anything, never letting go of the urge to love them more, to dig deeper and make ourselves stronger for them. Then Edward made a convincing case for _just one more_, and apparently my ovaries were having a fire sale, because I wound up having twins, whom we named Alistair and Didyme, and whom Michela wasted no time in nicknaming Ace and Dima.

Alice and Jasper opted not to have their own kids but couldn't get enough of ours, so between them and Rose and Emmett with their brood, I knew the loneliness of my childhood was a relic—something dusty and remote that had no power here. Sometimes I felt Edward's eyes on me from across the room, and my heart would swell to bursting, knowing he was seeing how much we had changed each other.

And that was only the first decade of our long life together. In the fourth decade, I found myself closing my locket for the last time, having wedged one final sliver of oak inside—a shaving from Dima's carving in the tree. I asked Edward to seal it shut with his soldering iron. His hands were as steady and sure at seventy-six as they had been at thirty-three, when he'd put a finger on my wrist for the first time, and ventured a simple plea, and opened his heart and mine for one single never-ending time in this big, long, full, happy life of ours.

**~ The End ~**

**AN: Oh, gosh. What to say? First of all, this**_** is**_** the end and I am marking this complete (*sniffle!*), but I do plan on adding a sort of addendum chapter soon, so don't take it off alert quite yet! There's also a strong likelihood of some EPOV outtakes eventually, which I'll post as a separate story string.**

**Huge THANK YOUs: **I can't adequately explain how much I have come to love happymelt, faireyfan, and midsouthmama for their involvement and support throughout this story…above and beyond their help reining (not reigning) in my grammar oddities and serving as sounding boards for plot twists and turns, I'm so grateful for these three new friends! Thanks, also, to the readers, writers, and twitterers who've encouraged and inspired me all along, including spanglemaker9 (who found this fic-diving when it was about 5 chapters in and had about 120 reviews) and proceeded to pimp it out, magnolia822, twanza, primarycolors, and denverpopcorn. **Read their stories!**

**Thanks to YOU, readers, for making this so fun for me! If you've read this far, I guess you've enjoyed it, so thanks!**


	28. Epilogue: The Clearwater Flourish

**Epilogue: The Clearwater Flourish**

At long last, it was summer in Ohio. I understood all at once why Edward had seemed so keen on planting more fruits and vegetables than flowers in our new garden. Our grey, indecisive spring gave way to solid days of sunshine and blue skies, and the entire clearing between the barn and the far edge of the woods bloomed into a sort of meadow filled with wildflowers in every shade of pink, orange, white, and purple. The school year finally came to an end, and I spent two full days just reading out among the flowers. Edward set up a couple of Adirondack chairs and a shade umbrella, but I usually opted for just a blanket and the shade of a tree. I liked to feel the spongy earth beneath me and breathe in the fragrant air.

Apparently, Edward felt the same way. I came home from a grocery run in the middle of the week and found him lying prone in the shade with little Che asleep on his chest. Rose and Emmett named their son Rochester after the place where they'd met, but the rest of us decided he needed a name more suitable for a kid. "Che" was what stuck.

Edward turned his head my way as I approached, his drowsy smile lighting me up. I crept closer and curled up beside him silently, putting my hand on Che's little body rising and falling in sleep. He was just four weeks old and growing so fast already.

"Thank God you're here," he whispered. "The kid has had me trapped like this for an hour."

I giggled. "You love it. Has he really been asleep that long?"

"Nah, more like ten minutes."

"Did he take his bottle?"

"No. Keeps spitting it out. I don't think he's hungry enough to cheat on his mom with a piece of plastic."

"Well, Rose and Emmett will be here in a few minutes."

I gazed at Edward lying there with his big hand blanketing Che's head, fingertips stroking the little downy hairs. Che gurgled in his sleep and squirmed against Edward's soft tee shirt, wrinkling his nose and pursing his lips. I swallowed a lump in my throat.

He said out loud what I was thinking. "I hope they take their time. I'm in no hurry."

"You're not getting sweaty?"

"No." He smiled a gentle smile at me. "I'm not getting sweaty."

I touched my fingertip to Che's little clenched hand to see if he would grasp it in his sleep, and he did. Edward watched me do it.

"They aren't always so quiet and cute."

"I know."

I let my gaze linger on Edward's face and the strange expression that came over it. I knew that family was no simple thing for him, given his own childhood, the aching lost connection to his birth parents he never stopped feeling, like a missing limb. He screwed his eyes shut for a moment and then looked at me again; even here in the shade, the brightness of the day shrank his pupils to dots.

"I want this." His voice was barely audible. "Not, you know, right away. But…in a few years. I think we should talk about it."

He was making a statement more than a request, but I knew what I wanted, too. "Okay."

"Seriously? Okay, we'll talk about it, or okay, yes?"

"Okay, yes. We'll talk, too, but yes." Did I surprise myself? Not really.

He tilted his head toward mine, edging closer to me without jostling Che. He reached a hand to cradle my cheek.

"Just so we're clear, you're the mom in this scenario. You get that, right?"

I laughed and pressed my lips against his temple.

"Shh, let's not wake him up."

The sound of tires crunching on the driveway told us Rose and Emmett were here to pick up their son. I sat up and shaded my eyes, waving as Edward walked across the lawn to greet them. He handed the baby over and caught them up on Che's various bodily functions and moods. They were all packed in and closing the van door when Edward shouted a request to Rosalie.

"Do me a favor and close the driveway gate behind you."

"Really? You never close the—"

"Just close the gate. Please." He turned his back on her before she was finished nodding her assent, and I saw the crinkle in his upper lip and the heat in his eyes that meant my clothes were about to come off right there in the great outdoors.

He laid me down and spread me out like a fan in the shade, sliding his sweaty body over mine and groaning into my neck, hoarse with exertion. I grasped both of his hands in mine and drew his arms out wide, feeling his weight on me, rolling us over. I guided his fingers and his mouth until my shuddering and gasping unleashed his deeper noises, deeper thrusts. We caught our breath. I rested my head on his thighs and kissed the grass stains on his bare knees. He murmured into my hair and wove it into one long braid, bending to tickle my vertebrae one at a time with his scruffy face.

~.~.~.~.~.~

Carlisle and Esme had us all over for a cookout on Saturday, along with Seth and Sue Clearwater. We ate, played badminton, and took turns cooing and gurgling in Che's direction. With Che nodding off to sleep every so often, Emmett, Rose, and Jasper played cards by the light of a lantern, a baby monitor next to them on the picnic table. The rest of us settled around the fire pit roasting marshmallows and drinking beers. With the static of the monitor competing with the crackling flames, I almost didn't hear Carlisle's quiet announcement.

"I thought you might be interested, Bella… Esme and I requested duplicates of our Dear Government Documents letters."

I looked up, startled. He was talking to me, but I could see that the collected group was listening. Esme nodded enthusiastically, raising her eyebrows and taking a swig from her beer.

"From the archive? Wow, I guess it must have been thirty years by now, hey?"

The library had a policy of releasing copies of the files after thirty years had passed—but only if the requesting party could describe the original letter with accuracy. Typically, the only customers were amateur genealogists who had notes in the family bible or a diary disclosing the existence of the letter, and even those were few and far between.

He nodded. "We just got to thinking about it, after all that's happened."

I smiled. After Esme had made us aware of those letters, I'd been careful to avoid seeing them, not wanting to pry. She'd only said they concerned her infertility. "So, what was it like for you, looking back?"

"Just a reminder of another time, I guess. No surprises to speak of." Carlisle pulled his marshmallow away from the flame, testing it. Sue moved to put another log on the fire, which threw more light on all of our faces. Jasper and Rosalie joined our circle as Emmett walked inside to check on Che.

"His letter was asking about how to optimize the chances of being selected as adoptive parents," said Esme.

"And so was hers. They were almost identical, in fact. We both even referenced the same family motto—Grandpa Platt's thing." Carlisle winked across the fire to Esme.

Sue ventured a guess. "_Giving love never depletes or diminishes love_."

"Yes, that's the one. I guess it's memorable." Carlisle nodded with a smile. "It was nice to see we were on the same wavelength even then. Of course, if we hadn't been so in tune, we would have found that out soon enough, given the events that took place. Those were difficult days for all of us."

He glanced at Alice and Edward. Edward was crouched next to Seth, the two of them assembling s'mores with industrious attention. Alice looked up, her lips pressed into a sympathetic smile. Jasper whispered something in her ear, and she fed him a bite of her snack.

I'd heard Edward tell the story, but I was curious to hear it from his parents. Edward had a bewildered sensitivity to what felt like extraordinary good luck in the aftermath of an unbelievably bad situation. His grief over losing one set of parents was forever tied to gratitude for the adoptive parents who stepped into their shoes. I'd never thought about what Carlisle and Esme's experience might have been.

"How did things come together? Do you mind my asking?"

"Not at all. Esme and I were already licensed as foster parents—a step we had pursued according to the advice forwarded to us from the library. And at the hospital, where I was a resident, I was following the Masens' care closely. We all were." He hesitated, looking at Edward.

Edward, for his part, scratched the skin behind his ear and glanced at Seth. "You go on ahead, I've heard this a thousand times. Seth, buddy, I think Jasper wanted our help getting some nonslip treads on those tree house stairs."

Sue turned her head to watch the two of them retreat to a brightly lit patch of lawn near the treehouse—away from talk of sick and dying parents. Jasper jumped up and loped after them.

Carlisle continued. "Well, you probably have no cause to be familiar with how full-blown malaria takes its course. It's very frustrating to treat, even with all the advantages of Western medicine, because it can seem to be cured—repeatedly—when, in fact, the disease is dormant and worsening. With each subsequent treatment, the likelihood that the cure will succeed becomes exponentially smaller. Edward Senior and Elizabeth spent weeks coming to terms with the seriousness of their prognosis, and one of the first things they did was to research and select guardians for Edward."

I remembered Edward telling me that he and his parents were the only living members of what had once been a large family. "What sort of research?"

Rosalie rested her head on Esme's shoulder; the two of them rocked gently from side to side, listening.

"Well, they spoke with the hospital social worker and interviewed various agencies. And then…we think that someone was gossiping about our adoption efforts in the cafeteria or some such thing, because the next thing we knew, Edward and Elizabeth asked us to sit down and talk with them about our values, about options. They watched us with Edward. We discussed what family means to us. And then they chose to designate us as his guardians, with the understanding that we would adopt him in the event that...well.

"Of course, our prevailing hope was that they would recover and that none of it would ever be necessary. To avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest with me being involved in their care, I called in my mentor from the Cleveland Clinic to take my place on the team. He was a world-class clinician.

"But it wasn't enough." He poked at the coals with his marshmallow-roasting stick. "I can say without hesitation that it was the most heartbreaking loss of my professional life. Or my private life."

I thought about this for a moment. I wondered if the most difficult chapters in all of our lives were finally behind us. And then I wondered if _difficult_ and _easy_ were the wrong measures to pay attention to. Were we our most resilient by now? Our most capable? I listened to the boisterous noise coming from the shade under the tree house, the boys' project apparently finished. They were now taking turns riding Seth's dirt bike as slowly as possible down the sturdy wooden stairs.

Esme spoke. "At first, it was more like we fell in love with this little boy and then watched him lose his parents. And then we _were_ his parents. It was a surreal combination of events."

"They couldn't have found better parents than you in a nationwide search. And yet there you were in the next room," said Alice. "I hate to think what would have happened if you weren't working that day."

"So do all of us, Al."

"I'll go see if Emmett needs any help. Anybody want another beer while I'm up?" Sue stood and gathered some empty wrappers to take into the house with her.

In bed in the tree house that night, I burrowed into Edward's campfire-smelling skin and tried to imagine what type of person he might have become if it hadn't been for Carlisle and Esme—and whether he and I would have ever crossed paths. For the first time, I felt a chill at the randomness of this _luck_ Edward had spoken about so often. I tightened my arms around him and wove my legs in between his.

~.~.~.~.~.~

Sue surprised us the next morning by joining us for our pancake breakfast. We always invited her, but she usually preferred to be at Muddywaters for the Sunday morning crowd. I was glad for the chance to spend time with her without so many other people around; it was just Edward, his parents, and me, everyone else having gone home the night before.

Sue handed Carlisle a small, dark jar of honey and tossed something my way. It was a tiny bundle of dried lavender. It smelled like heaven and summer.

"Oh! Is this the new lavender honey?" I asked. Leah had lobbied to convert part of the farm to lavender so they could produce this distinctive aromatic honey. "Edward mentioned it."

"I thought this would be nice with breakfast. In some tea, or on the flapjacks."

As I'd seen her do before, Sue studied the quilt on Esme's wall. Her eyes had wandered across the fabric surface, lingering on that odd blue and red circle trapped in the tree's branches. A design element, Esme had told me, meant to balance the composition. _A Clearwater flourish._

Esme handed Edward a pile of plates for the table and poured Sue a cup of coffee.

"How is Leah, Sue? She's got a birthday coming up, doesn't she? Same week as Edward's?"

"Ah, good memory! Yeah. She's almost exactly a year older." Sue nodded at Edward. "She's well, doing well. Got a new job and everything in the city."

The conversation came around to Rosalie and Emmett and the new baby as we ate, and Esme prompted Sue to tell us what it was like to be taking care of an infant in the late 70s. I knew Esme was envisioning Edward's infancy; she was newly fascinated with it. There had been a time before Che was born when the group of us looked around at one another in panic, like a bunch of kids in a pool who realized the lifeguards were nowhere to be found. Even the pseudo-grandparents-to-be among us had never been around a newborn.

"Were you able to take time off to be home with her? I mean, I'm sure even a day job isn't easy to do when you have a tiny baby, but I can't imagine working these diner hours."

"Oh, I didn't work in the diner then." She laughed, pushing her plate away and folding her arms on the table in front of her. "No way. I had a lot of odd jobs. For a long time I was switching from place to place every six or eight months…I tried to adjust and settle down, but I just got the itch to change so fast. Harry had a steady gig until 1980. Then he got another steady gig. Then we opened Muddywaters when Leah was ten, in '85."

Sue cleared her throat and fidgeted with the cloth placemat. She seemed nervous all of a sudden, and despite this—or because of it—she was volunteering the type of information I usually needed to pry out of her. My heart was racing, and it took my brain a moment to catch up. Sue was trying to tell us something.

I took a deep breath. "Sue…where did you work, all those years ago?"

"Oh, well, let's see. I cleaned houses. Then I did alterations and tailoring out of our home. I worked the day shift at the video store. I guess you would call it a DVD store today. And, ah, you'll be surprised to hear that I…I worked in the library."

Her voice was so quiet, and her face was clouded over as she looked at each of us in turn, reading our faces. Edward grasped my hand under the table.

"Sue, it sounds like…I mean, if there's something on your mind...," I paused and took a quick survey of the faces around the table, all of them perplexed. "Did you work in the archive?"

She was quiet for a moment, allowing us all a moment to draw our own conclusions. Esme, across from me, let her eyes drift to the quilt hanging on the wall—a quilt Sue's mother had made on commission, never meeting her client. I began to put together a sort of chain of events.

Sue slid her fork back and forth on the placemat. "Until 1980, I worked in the archive, cataloguing the letters. I couldn't handle all those sad stories, it turned out."

I pictured her as a young and free-spirited mother, coming across letters from two halves of a couple, each unaware of the other, each grounded deeply in love and desperate for a way to build a family out of love, if not out of DNA. I pictured her observing her mother at a quilting table, seeming to pluck phrases out of Sue's consciousness. _Giving love never depletes or diminishes love. _Unwittingly fabricating a future.

Esme joined in, prompting Sue. "And where did Harry work? You said he had a steady job until 1980. It's important, isn't it? Where…where was that?"

"He did small construction jobs. Woodworking, cabinets, that type of thing." Sue looked up from her own trembling hands, breathing out a sigh. "He was making some bookshelves for this young family. He was so proud, because he had designed the unit himself, and it was good work. He used to tell me stories about this little boy with straw-colored hair."

She stopped abruptly and looked at Edward, laughing feebly through tensed lips.

"I didn't know if I should tell you. I thought it didn't really matter…until last night, hearing you talk. One day he came home from work and told me how their health took a bad turn…and then how it took another worse turn, for both of them, unbelievably. And then he said how they were single-minded about leaving their beautiful boy in good hands, how it was all they could think about."

I watched Edward's eyes glaze over as he imagined the scene. Maybe he was mining his oldest memories for any trace of a young Harry Clearwater.

"So…I couldn't help myself. I told them both about your situation—the letters you sent to the archive. I knew how prepared you were to be parents, and I told them how full of love you were for each other, how you needed to share your hearts and your home. I _showed_ them the letters, Esme. Carlisle. I quit the library the next day." Edward reached across me to put a hand on top of Sue's. "I wasn't supposed to tell them, but I did it anyways. And then I shouldn't have stayed quiet for so long, but I did. It was only when I heard you talking so openly about seeing the letters again that I decided...

"I thought you should know it was never random chance. You showed your character in those letters, and I couldn't stay quiet about it. Even though I was wrong to break confidentiality, I would do it again in a heartbeat."

"Thank you, Sue." Edward knocked over his chair, moving awkwardly to wrap Sue in a sideways hug. His eyes were bright, dazed, intense. He'd been waiting a long time to thank someone other than fate.

~.~.~.~.~.~

Edward sat with the bulky, plainly-wrapped package on his lap, looking at me with his eyebrows pulled together. "So, even though it's my birthday, this is not a birthday present?"

"Well, no. I mean, I did make sure to get it in time for your birthday, but it kind of already belongs to you. Or, in any case, it's not mine to give you."

"But you _are_ giving it to me?" He shook his head, baffled.

"I just tracked it down for you."

I was jostling the whole couch with my nervous energy. I hoped he would understand it. "Will you open it already!"

"You're so excited. Wait, is this going to make me want to get extremely naked immediately? Should I call Jasper and have him push back our dinner reservation?"

"No, it's nothing like that. I'm saving that one for _after_ dinner."

He blinked and pursed his lips in mock dismay, pretending to look around the room for a second gift. It made me laugh.

He chuckled at me and slipped the paper off, shaking his head. He frowned at the cloth object vacuum-sealed in plastic, trying to sort out what it was and why it belonged to him. I was just as curious to see the thing, since I hadn't opened it myself.

As he unsealed the plastic and began unfolding the quilt, I realized with a start that there was very little I would have to explain. The fabric still carried a faint scent of tobacco and wool and something else indescribable. Based on the way he buried his face in it, it smelled like his childhood. I hadn't thought of that.

"Oh, God. Oh, God. This is _them_, Bella." His muffled voice was like a sob. "This belonged to…oh, wow."

After a few moments, he laughed and raised his wide-eyed face to look at me, blinking, gathering me into his arms with the quilt crushed between us.

"But you already know, of course. But…where? How?"

"Sue figured it out. Isn't it beautiful? Let's really look at it first."

We spread it onto our laps and the clean coffee table in front of us. Edward occasionally bent down to sniff at it, laughing at himself, bouncing his knees under the fabric. The quilt was a blend of all different shades of blue, mostly circles within squares, with red accents. It was perfectly preserved.

"This blue circle motif is in Esme's quilt, too. The one she had commissioned."

"Sue always thought it looked familiar, that circle—and then she matched it to an old unclaimed quilt in Emily's collection. She thinks her mother was still making Esme's when the adoption was underway, so she must have put this motif in to link it to Elizabeth's. But no one ever came to claim Elizabeth's finished quilt, and it got lost in the shuffle. Until now." I flipped over a corner of the quilt to reveal an embroidered signature: _E.M., E.M., E.M._

He turned his attention back to the front of the quilt. I explained to him how the stitching on the individual quilt squares differed from the stitching that held it all together, which was a sign that it was made in two stages by two people; most likely, Elizabeth made the pieces, and someone more skilled quilted them together and finished the seams.

One square stood out, distinct from the rest: a rough-hewn circular patch of blue and red held together with chunky scarecrow-like stitching. We both noticed it at the same time.

"What is this? Is this an alteration—like the ones you've mentioned, where they change the quilt later?"

"No. It's part of the original quilt. See here? This stitching is the same as the rest of the squares, while this other part is not. But the fabric is the same throughout, and the thread is identical."

"What are you saying? Do you think Elizabeth was already sick when she made this part? I guess that's why it's so messy."

I remembered where I had seen stitching like this before, and suddenly I knew why it looked this way. I took a deep breath, seeing the patch grow blurry before my eyes. "No. It wasn't her. Edward…this is how a child stitches."

I watched him inspect it with fascination. He wasn't picking up on what I was saying. I put my hand on his, calming myself more than him.

"Baby, listen. I think…you made this."

His head lifted, and he stared at me, astonished. I saw a flicker of skepticism pass over his face—an impulse of his that told me just how badly he wanted this to be true. And then I saw him thrust his doubts away, and his face crumpled with emotion.

"You think…you think she taught me, huh?" He ran his fingers over the stitches. "You think she saw me make this?"

"I do." I conjured up an image of this woman and a very young Edward bent over the fabric, running their hands over the shapes, making something together.

"It's quite good for a four-year-old. Remarkable, really."

I watched his chest rise and fall with deep breaths as he studied the handiwork—his mother's and his own. He sighed, a wistful smile spreading across his lips. He looked up at me when I threaded my hands into his hair.

"It's funny…all this time, I've been wishing she could have known me, could have seen the way I turned out. I wondered if she would even recognize me—her son, an artist? But maybe…maybe I turned out to be who I am because of her."

And there it was. A simple link, half-invented, only barely plausible. But a link nonetheless. I watched resolve take hold in his features. It was a neat trick, this deep optimism of his; he had relearned it the way an accident victim learns to walk again. I stroked the weary lines out of his forehead. Did I want our child to have his eyes, his talent? Or his heart? It wasn't even a question. His heart was everything. Everything.

My own pulse hammering in my chest, I kissed his soft lips. This was the rest of our lives, already beginning.

~.~.~

**AN:** So, in terms of chronology, this was more like a side-logue than an epilogue...but I didn't feel like it fit within the action of the rest of the story and it also didn't seem like an outtake to me. I've had so much fun doing this, and I so appreciate all the readers who have taken the time to read. Thank you! Thanks as always to **happymelt, faireyfan, **and** midsouthmama** for giving me amazing advice and keeping me on the straight and narrow grammar-wise...and for being generally awesome.


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